What does “terug van weggeweest” mean in Dutch?
Wilde dieren maken een comeback in Europa en België
A2 Dutch listening practice · Flemish Dutch · Picked for people who know a little
Terug van weggeweest (“back from being-gone”) is the Dutch idiom for something making a comeback after a long absence. Weggeweest joins weg (“away”) to the past tense of zijn (“to be”). There’s no neat English match: the phrase points at the condition of having been away, not just the absence. Dutch press uses it for everything: actors returning to TV, fashions returning to closets, beavers returning to Belgian rivers. Often just shortened to terug.
This Flemish nature segment uses the idiom about wildlife returning to Belgium: “en ook bij ons zijn een paar wilde dieren terug van weggeweest” (“and a few wild animals are back here too”).
How common are the words?
How common are the words in this A2 Dutch listening practice video?
How common in written Dutch
How common in spoken Dutch
Harder words in this video
These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Dutch and Flemish news headlines (NOS, VRT NWS, Het Nieuwsblad)
- ▸In Dutch entertainment coverage of returning TV hosts and bands (RTL Boulevard, Story, AD)
- ▸In Dutch fashion retrospectives about reviving 90s and 00s trends (Vogue NL, Elle NL, Marie Claire NL, Glamour NL)
- ▸In Flemish wildlife and conservation press (Natuurpunt, Knack)