Questions & Answers about De witte schoenen zijn goedkoop.
Why does witte get an -e at the end, while goedkoop does not?
witte comes directly before the noun it describes (schoenen). In Dutch, adjectives in this position almost always get an -e added to them. goedkoop comes after the verb (zijn). Adjectives used later in the sentence like this stay in their basic dictionary form and never get the extra -e.
The dictionary word for "white" is wit. Why is it spelled with double T in witte?
This is because of a Dutch spelling rule to keep the vowel sound short. If we just added an -e to get "wite", the i would change to a long vowel sound (like in the English word "we"). Doubling the consonant to tt locks in the short i sound.
How do we know schoenen means "shoes" plural, rather than just one shoe?
The singular word for shoe is schoen. Dutch usually makes words plural by adding -en to the end. The verb zijn (are) also matches this plural form.
If we said "White shoes" instead of "The white shoes", would witte still have the -e ending?
Yes! Because schoenen is a plural noun, any adjective placed directly in front of it gets the -e ending, even if you drop the word De.
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