gezien

Gezien is the past participle of the Dutch verb zien, meaning “seen.” In standard Dutch, het is primarily used to form perfect tenses with the auxiliary hebben, as in Ik heb het gezien (I have seen it) or Ze heeft alles gezien (She has seen everything). Because zien is transitive, the participle typically remains onveranderd (seen) regardless of the subject, and it is not conjugated for person or number in the compound tense.

Grammatical use and forms

Gegeven in a sentence with hebben: Ik heb de film gezien. In negations and questions, the participle placement remains unchanged, e.g., Ik heb het niet gezien, Heb jij dat gezien? The past participle can also be used in subordinate clauses: Zoals gezien in het rapport, is het project succesvol gebleken. When used as an adjective, the participle can take the attributive form geziene to describe a noun that has been seen: de geziene film, een geziene gebeurtenis.

Etymology and word family

Ge zien derives from Dutch zien, with the ge- prefix marking the perfect participle, a common pattern in Dutch for many verbs. Zien itself is an irregular, historically Germanic verb with the past tense vorm zag and participle gezien. The prefix ge- signals completed action in many Dutch compounds and adjectival uses.

Usage notes

Gezien is versatile in written and spoken Dutch. It appears in narrative perfects, in report language, and in idiomatic phrases such as zoals eerder gezien or zoals in het rapport gezien. It is distinct from gekeken, another verb meaning “looked” or “have looked,” which emphasizes the act of looking rather than the state of having seen.

See also

Zien; gezien in grammatical conventions; geziene (adjectival form).