Boodschappen doen in het Nederlands: vragen en antwoorden

What does “boodschappen” mean in Dutch?

In Dutch, boodschappen doen means to do the shopping. The word boodschappen (plural of boodschap) originally meant errands or messages — you were sent somewhere to carry something out. Over time, the things you came back with — the groceries — took over the word. So “doing your boodschappen” still carries that old idea of going out on an errand, just one that ends at the supermarket.

The spoken question here — “Bij welke supermarkt doet u de boodschappen?” (At which supermarket do you do the shopping?) — is textbook natural use. Boodschap goes back to Middle Dutch bodescap, from bode (messenger) + -schap (a suffix forming nouns). German keeps the original meaning clearly in Botschaft (embassy, lit. “the mission or message”). In modern Dutch, the singular boodschap still means a piece of news or a message in formal contexts: een slechte boodschap (bad news), een boodschap achterlaten (to leave a message). The plural boodschappen almost always means groceries. Other useful phrases: een boodschappenlijstje (a shopping list, with the diminutive -je), boodschappentas (shopping bag), de boodschappen ophalen (to pick up the groceries).