Breakdown of Mijn vader zoekt zijn paspoort.
zoeken
to look for
mijn
my
het paspoort
the passport
zijn
his
de vader
the father
Questions & Answers about Mijn vader zoekt zijn paspoort.
Wait, doesn't zijn mean "to be"? Why is it translated as "his" here?
Zijn is a word with two completely different meanings! You probably know it as the verb "to be" (like in wij zijn, meaning "we are"). But here, it is the possessive word for "his". You can tell it means "his" because it comes right before a noun (paspoort).
Where is the word for "for" in this sentence?
In Dutch, you don't need a separate word for "for" when you use the verb zoeken. The verb zoeken translates to the whole phrase "to look for" or "to search for". So, zoekt zijn paspoort directly means "is looking for his passport" without needing an extra preposition.
The English translation says "is looking", but the Dutch sentence just uses zoekt. Why?
Dutch doesn't use an "is doing" form (continuous tense) the way English does. For most situations, Dutch simply uses the standard present tense. So, Mijn vader zoekt means both "My father looks" and "My father is looking".
What if the passport belonged to my mother? How would the sentence change?
If your mother was looking for her passport, you would use the possessive word haar (her). The sentence would become: Mijn moeder zoekt haar paspoort.
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