Dutch dislikes leaving a heavy clause stranded in the middle of a sentence. When a dat-clause, of-clause or te-clause functions as the object or complement of a verb, Dutch typically extraposes it — pushes it to the very end of the matrix clause — and leaves a small placeholder behind to mark where it logically belongs. That placeholder is either anticipatory het or er + a fixed preposition. The pattern is one of the clearest signatures of advanced, native-sounding Dutch, and one English provides almost no scaffolding for: English happily says "I find it annoying that…" but also, ungrammatically for Dutch, "I find annoying that…" — and English has nothing at all resembling the er + prep + dat construction. This page works through when the placeholder is obligatory, which preposition each verb demands, and the correlative cousins zo … dat and des te.
Anticipatory het: holding the object slot
Many verbs and adjectival predicates take a clause as their object: Ik vind [dat hij gelijk heeft] vervelend. But Dutch will not leave that clause sitting in the object slot in the middle of the sentence. It extraposes the clause to the end and parks a het in the slot it vacated.
Ik vind het vervelend dat hij steeds te laat komt.
I find it annoying that he's always late. ('het' holds the object slot; the dat-clause is extraposed to the end)
We vinden het belangrijk dat iedereen zich gehoord voelt.
We think it's important that everyone feels heard. (anticipatory 'het' + extraposed dat-clause)
Ze haatte het om alleen te reizen.
She hated travelling alone. (anticipatory 'het' + extraposed 'om … te'-clause)
The het here is not the meaningful "it" that points at a thing in the world — it is a structural placeholder, an IOU promising "the real object is coming at the end." Because English sometimes uses a parallel it ("I find it annoying that…"), learners get the pattern half-right and then drop the het exactly where English allows the bare "find annoying" — which Dutch never does.
The het feit dat construction
A specialised, more formal version uses the full noun het feit ("the fact") as the anchor, with the dat-clause as its content: het feit dat… ("the fact that…"). This lets the clause behave like a noun phrase — taking prepositions, sitting as a subject — which plain anticipatory het cannot do.
Het feit dat niemand iets zei, zegt eigenlijk genoeg.
The fact that nobody said anything actually says enough. ('het feit dat…' as the subject of the sentence)
We werden verrast door het feit dat de zaal helemaal vol zat.
We were surprised by the fact that the hall was completely full. ('door het feit dat…' — the construction lets a clause follow a preposition)
This is the workhorse for putting a clause where a preposition demands a noun — door, ondanks, vanwege cannot govern a bare dat-clause, so het feit dat steps in. Register: (formal / written) leans on it; in speech it is often trimmed to plain dat.
Er + preposition: the fixed-preposition pattern
This is the construction with no English parallel, and the highest-value one on the page. Many Dutch verbs govern a fixed preposition: rekenen op (count on), afhangen van (depend on), zorgen voor (see to), twijfelen aan (doubt), zich ergeren aan (be annoyed by). When the object of that preposition is a whole clause rather than a noun, you cannot say op dat or van dat. Instead, Dutch fuses the preposition with the prop-word er and places a dat- or of-clause at the end:
verb + er + [preposition] + … + dat/of-clause
Ik reken erop dat je op tijd bent.
I'm counting on you being on time. ('rekenen op' → er + op, extraposed dat-clause)
Het hangt ervan af of we genoeg geld hebben.
It depends on whether we have enough money. ('afhangen van' → er + van, extraposed of-clause)
Zorg er alsjeblieft voor dat de deur op slot gaat.
Please see to it that the door gets locked. ('zorgen voor' → er + voor, with 'er' and 'voor' split around the adverbial)
Two things to absorb. First, the choice of preposition is lexically fixed by the verb — you must know that rekenen takes op, afhangen takes van, twijfelen takes aan; there is no logic to derive it from. Second, er and the preposition can split: short adverbs and pronouns can slot between them (er alsjeblieft voor, er sterk aan). The dat/of choice follows the usual rule: dat for a statement, of for an embedded yes/no question.
Ik twijfel er sterk aan of dat een goed idee is.
I strongly doubt whether that's a good idea. ('twijfelen aan' → er … aan, split by 'sterk', + of-clause)
Je moet er rekening mee houden dat het druk wordt.
You have to bear in mind that it'll be busy. (fixed phrase 'rekening houden met' → er … mee + dat-clause)
Zo … dat: the result correlative
A correlative pair links a degree to its consequence: zo … dat ("so … that"). The zo sits with the adjective or adverb in the main clause; the dat introduces the result clause (verb-final, as any subordinate clause).
Het was zo druk dat we geen plek meer konden vinden.
It was so busy that we couldn't find a spot anymore. ('zo druk … dat' + verb-final result clause)
Hij sprak zo zacht dat niemand hem kon verstaan.
He spoke so softly that no one could understand him. ('zo zacht … dat' result)
A close relative, zodanig … dat (formal), and dermate … dat (formal) work identically with a more elevated flavour.
Des te: the correlative of proportion
Des te means "all the … / so much the …," expressing that one degree rises with another. On its own it forms set phrases — des te beter (all the better), des te erger (all the worse) — and it pairs with naarmate or hoe in full proportional constructions.
Als hij niet komt, des te beter — dan hebben we meer ruimte.
If he doesn't come, all the better — then we'll have more room. (set phrase 'des te beter')
Hoe langer je wacht, des te moeilijker wordt het.
The longer you wait, the harder it gets. ('hoe … des te …' proportional correlative; note inversion 'wordt het' in the second half)
The brief from earlier pages connects here: des te meer omdat ("all the more because") is the formal subordinator phrase built on this same des te, joining a heightened degree to its reason.
Zijn reactie viel zwaar, des te meer omdat we hem vertrouwden.
His reaction hit hard, all the more so because we trusted him. ('des te meer omdat' → verb-final reason clause)
Common Mistakes
❌ Ik vind vervelend dat hij te laat komt.
Incorrect — the obligatory anticipatory 'het' is missing before the extraposed dat-clause.
✅ Ik vind het vervelend dat hij te laat komt.
I find it annoying that he comes late.
❌ Ik reken op dat je komt.
Incorrect — with a clausal object, 'rekenen op' must use 'er + op'; you cannot say 'op dat'.
✅ Ik reken erop dat je komt.
I'm counting on you coming.
❌ Het hangt af van of we tijd hebben.
Incorrect — 'afhangen van' fuses to 'er + van' before a clause: 'ervan af of', not 'af van of'.
✅ Het hangt ervan af of we tijd hebben.
It depends on whether we have time.
❌ Ik vind het vervelend hij te laat komt.
Incorrect — the extraposed content clause still needs its subordinator 'dat'; you can't drop it after anticipatory 'het'.
✅ Ik vind het vervelend dat hij te laat komt.
I find it annoying that he's late.
❌ Het was zo druk dat we konden geen plek vinden.
Incorrect — the 'dat'-result clause is subordinate, so the verbs go to the end: 'geen plek konden vinden'.
✅ Het was zo druk dat we geen plek konden vinden.
It was so busy that we couldn't find a spot.
Key Takeaways
- Dutch extraposes a heavy clausal object to the end and marks its origin with a placeholder: anticipatory het for plain clausal objects, er + fixed preposition for verbs that govern a preposition.
- Dropping the obligatory het (Ik vind vervelend dat…) is a genuine error, not a stylistic slip — het is the pronoun standing in for the coming clause.
- In the er + prep pattern the preposition is lexically fixed by the verb (rekenen op, afhangen van, twijfelen aan), er and the preposition can split, and dat vs of follows statement vs yes/no question.
- The correlatives zo … dat (result) and des te (proportion) round out the system; the dat-clause is always verb-final, however the main clause is shaped.
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Complex Grammar: OverviewB2 — An orientation to the Complex Grammar group — the constructions that combine several rules at once: anticipatory het and er pointing forward to clauses, reported speech with embedded word order, long verb clusters, stacked subordination, and the information-packaging that makes advanced Dutch sound natural. Where the pieces fit, and the one error that haunts all of them.
- Anticipatory Het and Er: Pointing Forward to a ClauseB2 — How Dutch announces a clause before delivering it. Anticipatory 'het' holds the object slot for a coming dat- or te-clause (Ik vind het fijn dat je er bent); anticipatory 'er' plus a fixed preposition does the same for prepositional-object verbs (Ik reken erop dat je komt). When the placeholder is obligatory, when it's optional, and why English speakers keep leaving it out.
- Pronominal Er: Er + Preposition (ermee, erop, erover)B1 — A preposition cannot take a thing-pronoun in Dutch, so er replaces it and fuses with the preposition — 'with it' is ermee, not 'met het'; 'about it' is erover; 'on it' is erop — with the irregular fusions met→mee and tot→toe.
- Correlative Conjunctions: Zowel...als, Niet alleen...maar ook, Noch...nochB2 — Dutch's paired connectors — both...and, not only...but also, either...or, neither...nor, the more...the more — including the inversion after fronted niet alleen and the built-in negative of noch...noch.
- Advanced Clause Linking and CohesionC1 — How to build cohesive multi-clause discourse in Dutch: choosing between subordinators, conjunctional adverbs and coordinators — each with its own word-order effect — and deploying formal connectives like immers, derhalve, niettemin and daarentegen without losing your footing on the verb.