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Questions & Answers about Houdt de arts van honden?
Why does this sentence use houdt ... van to mean 'like'? Doesn't houden mean 'to hold'?
On its own, the verb houden does mean 'to hold'. However, when you combine it with the word van, it creates the fixed expression houden van, which means 'to like' or 'to love'.
Since this lesson is about negation, how would I say 'The doctor does NOT like dogs'?
You would say: De arts houdt niet van honden. When you negate a sentence that has a fixed preposition (like van in houden van), the word niet is placed right before that preposition.
Why does the sentence start with the verb houdt?
This is a yes/no question. In Dutch, you do not use helping words like 'does' or 'do' to ask a question. Instead, you simply swap the order of the subject (de arts) and the verb (houdt), placing the verb at the very beginning of the sentence.
Why isn't there an article like de in front of honden?
Just like in English, when you talk about a plural noun in a general sense (dogs in general, rather than specific dogs), you leave out the article.