Seeming, Rumors, and Turning Out
When discussing internet trends or news, you will often talk about things that appear to be true, are rumored to happen, or eventually turn out to be fake. In Dutch, you use three specific evidential verbs for this:
- lijken (to seem / to appear)
- schijnen (to seem / to be rumored)
- blijken (to turn out / to become evident)
While you could form sentences with a subordinate clause starting with dat (like "Het lijkt dat..."), Dutch heavily prefers a structure called "subject raising." This means the subject of the action becomes the main subject of the sentence, and the action itself is expressed with te + an infinitive verb at the end of the clause.
For example, instead of saying "It seems that the influencer edits her content," you say "The influencer seems to edit her content."
Using Schijnen for Hearsay
The verb schijnen is particularly useful for rumors or things you have heard but cannot verify yourself. It works with the exact same te + infinitive structure.
Passive Voice and Adjectives
You will often use these verbs to describe the state of something, or something that has been done to a subject. In these cases, the verb zijn (to be) or hebben (to have) acts as the infinitive and is placed at the very end of the sentence. A past participle or an adjective goes right before te zijn or te hebben.
Separable Verbs
If the infinitive at the end of the sentence is a separable verb, the word te physically splits the verb in two. It is placed directly between the separable prefix and the core verb, written as three separate words.