Rood
by Marco Borsato
A good Dutch card for someone who has finished the basics and wants real sentences. Almost every verb form here is first-person present — ik loop, ik kijk, ik hoop — so you meet the most useful conjugation in the language a dozen times in four minutes. Watch two of them closely: koop ik and denk ik put the verb before the subject. That is the Dutch verb-second rule in the wild, and once you have noticed it you start hearing it everywhere. The nouns are short and concrete — hart, zon, deur, mond, glas — and the three colour adjectives are the ones you meet on day one. Nothing abstract, nothing literary. If Dutch is your first Germanic language after English, this is a sensible place to start.
How to study this song
“Rood” carries 37 Dutch words, 12 adjectives and 29 verb forms — 78 study entries in all, graded A2+. The glossary is the place to begin — rozen, kleur and liefde are the song’s keywords. This one leans on its verbs: 29 distinct forms against 12 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| NL | EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| rozen | roses | rosas | rose | roses |
What this song teaches you
Level · A2+
- Vocabulary words
- 37
- Adjectives
- 12
- Word combos
- 11
- Expressions
- 10
- Verb forms
- 29
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Rood” (Dutch for “red”) is a sweeping pop ballad by Marco Borsato, one of the best-selling and most popular singers in the Netherlands.
Released in 2006 in connection with his “Symphonica in Rosso” concert series, it was written and produced by his long-time collaborator John Ewbank and built around a grand, orchestral arrangement that borrows its dramatic theme from Supertramp’s “Crime of the Century”.
The colour red runs through the lyric as an image of passion and love, giving the song its bold, cinematic emotional charge. It was written and produced by John Ewbank, Borsato’s long-standing collaborator, for the album “Symphonica in Rosso”.
Did you know?
The song reached number one on both major Dutch charts — the Dutch Top 40 and the Mega Single Top 100 — as well as the Flemish Ultratop 50 in Belgium, making it one of Borsato’s signature hits.
Its orchestral sample of Supertramp gives it an unusually symphonic sound for a Dutch pop single, and it became a highlight of his sold-out “Symphonica in Rosso” shows in the Netherlands.
Charts & streaming
“Rood” topped the singles charts in both the Netherlands and Flanders and was a major commercial success, reinforcing Marco Borsato’s standing as a fixture at the top of the Dutch charts. It remains one of his most-streamed and most-requested songs and a staple of his large-scale concerts.