keken

Keken is the past tense plural form of the Dutch verb kijken, meaning to look or to watch. It is used to describe a completed act of looking in the past, regardless of the subject. The simple past forms are: ik keek, jij keek, hij/zij/het keek, wij keken, jullie keken, zij keken.

The related past participle of kijken is gekeken, which is used with the auxiliary verb hebben to form the perfect tenses, for example ik heb gekeken (I have looked). The vocabulary surrounding keken often involves phrases like naar iets kijken (to look at something) or naar een film kijken (to watch a film). In narrative or descriptive prose, keken appears to place a sight-ginding action in a past timeframe.

Keken is a regular past tense form for its verb class in Dutch and is commonly encountered in everyday language, literature, journalism, and speech. It coexists with related phrases that describe visual perception or watching activity, such as kijken naar, uitkijken naar, or voortdurend naar iets blijven kijken. As with many Dutch verbs, correct usage depends on subject-person and sentence tense, but keken itself serves as a straightforward past tense inflection for kijken in plural and formal contexts.