Verhuizen

to move (house) [verb] [verhuisde, verhuisd] [‘ver-hui-zun’] Iconspeaker_klein_2

A
house in Dutch is a "huis". In this case the derived verb begins with "ver".
When a verb starts with "ver" it can indicate some kind of change. In
this case change of house 🙂

If you work for a Dutch company, in most cases your employer will
grant you 1 or 2 days of leave per 2-year period to help you facilitate
moving house.

In case you want to use "to move" just ‘to move’ something, say a
desk or whatever, then we usually say "verplaatsen" (again a change
there in location/place ("plaats").)

Examples:
"Madelon is vorige week verhuisd van Den Haag naar Amsterdam."
("Last week Madelon moved from Den Haag to Amsterdam.")

"Verhuizen is een van de meest stressvolle gebeurtenissen."
("Moving (house) is one of the most stressful events.")

– "Verhuizen jullie zelf, of laten jullie het doen?"
("Are you moving yourselves, or are you hiring somebody?" Lit. ".., or let you do it?")

– "Hé, nog bedankt voor het meehelpen verhuizen hè!" – "Tuurlijk makker, graag gedaan!"
("Hey,
thanks again for helping me move (, eh)!") – "Sure mate/dude, you’re
welcome!" Here, "tuurlijk" is the informal abbreviation of
"natuurlijk": of course, sure.)

Related words:
– "Verhuizing": move, removal [noun].
– "Verhuisbedrijf": mover, remover, moving company.
– "Verhuizer": mover, remover [the person].
– "Verhuislift": elevator used by movers.
– "Verhuisdoos": moving box, removal box.
– "Verhuisbericht": notice of moving (house).

4 thoughts on “Verhuizen

  1. From time to time, my Belgian friend writes to me and says something or other is ‘een hele verhuis.’ Have you heard this expression? The meaning I am getting is that it is ‘a big hassle.’
    bijv: Als de vader geen trappen op kan, dan moet er een bed in de woonkamer. Een hele verhuis dus, om maar één probleem aan te halen.
    or if there is a big family get-together, het is altijd ‘een hele verhuis.’
    Is this a Vlaams thing?

  2. Here’s another example:
    Het was een leuke en drukke bedoening. Je moet weten dat wij maar een kleine woonkamer hebben. Met 8 à tien, dat gaat nog net, maar met 16 in totaal! ‘t was een hele verhuis met tafels en stoelen!

    • Hello Bruce,

      I am not aware of such usage in the Netherlands. In Flemish the noun ‘verhuis’ could be short for the noun ‘verhuizing’ (but this I only deduce from your examples). In the Netherlands we only use the latter. In the examples that you give, we could say ‘het is/was een hele verhuizing’, but only in the case of the moving of physical objects (and to emphasize that it was a lot of work (in case it doesn’t concern really moving house) ).

      • Sander,
        I think you might find this funny.
        So, I finally heard back from my friend from Belgium who said, “Verhuizing klinkt zo Hollands!” Apparently they never use the word ‘verhuizing’ in Belgium! They recently saw the word ‘verhuizingen’ on the side of a truck and thought it strange. (They’re always telling me how I’m actually improving their Dutch by asking these questions.) Because their family is so big, it’s apparently ‘een hele verhuis’ every time they get together. That’s why I took it as some kind of special expression meaning ‘a great big hassle’ because, for them, apparently it is!
        So, you are right on target. When they say ‘een hele verhuis’ in Belgium, they are talking about ‘het verplaatsen van meubels’ but also what a hassle it is.
        Anyway, I realize this is a Dutch web site, not a Vlaams web site, so I don’t want to muck things up. But I have friends in both Belgium and the Netherlands, so it’s a double challenge for me.
        So when I hear ‘een hele verhuis/verhuizing’, I’ll just take that to mean there’s lots of people and moving around of furniture involved, and it’s heel vervelend. Just like verhuizen!

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