Breakdown of Ze zoeken de informatie voor ons.
zoeken
to look for
ons
us (object)
de informatie
the information
voor
for (on behalf of)
ze
they; she (unstressed form of zij) / them (object)
Questions & Answers about Ze zoeken de informatie voor ons.
How can we tell that ze means "they" and not "she" in this sentence?
Look at the verb! Ze can mean "she" or "they". Because the verb is the plural form zoeken (are looking) instead of the singular zoekt (is looking), we know ze means "they" here.
Why doesn't the sentence say zoeken voor to mean "looking for"?
In Dutch, the verb zoeken already means "to look for" or "to search for". You don't need to add an extra word for "for" right after it. The voor you see later in the sentence simply belongs to voor ons (for us).
Is ons in this sentence the same as the word for "our"?
They look identical, but here ons is an object pronoun meaning "us". You might remember ons as a possessive word (like in ons huis, our house). When it receives an action or follows a preposition like voor (for), it means "us". Luckily, you only have to memorize one word for both!
Is there a trick to knowing that informatie takes de?
Yes! Almost all Dutch words that end in -ie (like de familie, de politie, and de informatie) are de words.
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