What does “zich voordoen als” mean in Dutch?

Inbreker doet zich voor als huiseigenaar bij politie

WhatsAppGmailTelegramEmail

A2 Dutch listening practice · Dutch from the Netherlands · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
zich voordoen als
Dutch verb for posing as someone else
“to pose as,” to pretend to be someone you’re not

A hidden-camera prank shows a burglar caught red-handed inside someone else’s house. When police officers ring the bell after an alarm alert, the burglar opens the door and calmly answers as if he were the homeowner, right down to reciting an alarm code. That’s zich voordoen als: to pose as, to pass yourself off as someone else entirely, not just tell one small lie.

The construction breaks into zich (oneself) + voordoen (to present, put forward) + als (as): literally “to present oneself as.” It differs from a plain lie (liegen) by specifically naming the fake identity: a con artist can zich voordoen als monteur (pose as a repairman), or, as in this sting, as the rightful owner of a house he’s actually robbing.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 Dutch listening practice listening practice?

87.9%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Dutch words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday Dutch.

General Dutch frequency

81.3%
Top 1,000
87.9%
Top 2,000
98.9%
Top 5,000

Spoken Dutch frequency

87.9%
Top 1,000
93.7%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-Dutch data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

afging
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
alarmsysteem
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
alarm system
lichtknop
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
light switch
goedenavond
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000Common in speech
good evening
boef
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
thief (slang)

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

Explore Dutch from the Netherlands Comprehensible Input on Reelang

Open Dutch hub