Questions & Answers about Ik zie zevenentachtig bomen.
Why is the number eighty-seven written as zevenentachtig instead of "tachtig-zeven"?
In Dutch, compound numbers from 21 to 99 are formed backwards compared to English. You say the single digit first, then the word en (and), and finally the ten. So, 87 is literally "seven-and-eighty".
Why is zevenentachtig written as one giant word?
Dutch glues numbers together much more than English does. Any number up to one hundred is always written as a single, unbroken word. There are no spaces or hyphens used here!
How do I pronounce the "ch" in zevenentachtig?
The ch in the tens part, tachtig (eighty), makes the classic Dutch scraping sound in the back of the throat. It sounds exactly like the regular Dutch g.
The singular word for tree is boom. Why does the plural bomen only have one "o"?
This is a classic Dutch spelling rule. The double "o" in boom tells you it is a long vowel. When you make it plural by adding -en, the word breaks into syllables like this: bo-men. Because the "o" is now at the exact end of an open syllable, it automatically makes a long sound. We drop the extra "o" because it is no longer needed to keep the sound long!
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