Pronominal adverbs (erop, ermee)

Referring to Things After Prepositions

In English, when talking about tools or inanimate objects, you naturally say "with it" or "on it." In Dutch, you cannot combine a preposition directly with a pronoun like het (it) to refer to a thing. Word-for-word translations like met het or op het are grammatically incorrect.

Instead, Dutch replaces the pronoun with er (there) and attaches it to the preposition, fusing them into a single word known as a pronominal adverb.

Working "With It": ermee

To say "with it", you combine er and met (with). Notice that in these combinations, the preposition met always changes its shape to mee, creating the word ermee.

Hitting "On It": erop

Similarly, when you want to say "on it" (or simply "it" as the object of a preposition like "to hit"), you combine er with op (on) to create erop.