Complex Pronominal Adverbs
When navigating physical obstacles, Dutch often uses complex directional prepositions like overheen (over), omheen (around), onderdoor (underneath), and tussendoor (in between). You might use these to describe getting past a physical obstacle, like de hindernis.
| The dog could not jump over the obstacle. | De hond kon niet over de hindernis springen. |
When you replace the specific obstacle with "it", you combine er with these complex prepositions to form pronominal adverbs like eroverheen (over it) or eromheen (around it).
Crucially, these words are usually split in a sentence. The er stays near the beginning, while the preposition part (overheen, omheen) moves to the end of the clause, right before the verbs. Extra details, such as time or manner, sit between them.
| He wanted to jump over it quickly yesterday. | Hij wilde er gisteren snel overheen springen. |
| There was a fence, but he secretly walked around it. | Er stond een hek, maar hij liep er stiekem omheen. |
If you want to emphasize moving over this or under that, you replace er with hier or daar. The same splitting rule applies.
| You must lift the box over this carefully. | Je moet de doos hier voorzichtig overheen tillen. |
| The bridge is too low, so we cannot sail under that. | De brug is te laag, dus we kunnen daar niet onderdoor varen. |
To connect sentences and say "between which" or "through which", use waar combined with the preposition (e.g., waartussendoor).
When navigating tight spaces, you might need the reflexive verb zich wurmen (to squeeze oneself).
| to squeeze oneself | zich wurmen |
Notice how waar and tussendoor wrap around the rest of the relative clause when combined with this reflexive verb:
| These are the boxes between which we squeezed ourselves yesterday. | Dit zijn de dozen waar we ons gisteren tussendoor wurmden. |