Breakdown of De winkel verkoopt veertien jassen en vijftien truien.
en
and
verkopen
to sell
de winkel
the shop
de jas
the coat
Questions & Answers about De winkel verkoopt veertien jassen en vijftien truien.
Why is fourteen spelled veertien instead of viertien?
In Dutch, the word for 4 is vier, but 14 is a slight exception. The spelling changes to veer before adding tien (ten), making it veertien. However, 15 is completely regular: vijf (5) + tien = vijftien.
I learned that kopen means to buy. Is verkoopt related to that?
Yes! The verb here is verkopen (to sell). Adding the prefix ver- to kopen (to buy) changes its meaning to the exact opposite.
Why does jassen have a double 's', while the singular is just jas?
This is a spelling rule to keep the short 'a' sound. When a word ends in a single short vowel and one consonant (like jas), we double the final consonant before adding the plural -en. If we didn't do this, the 'a' would change to a long 'aa' sound.
Why does the verb end in a 't' (verkoopt)?
The subject of the sentence is De winkel (The store), which is a singular 'it'. For the 'he, she, or it' form in the present tense, we take the verb stem (verkoop) and add a -t at the end.