Breakdown of Het feest is geweldig! We hebben veel gedanst.
zijn
to be
hebben
to have
veel
much / many / a lot of
het feest
the party
dansen
to dance
geweldig
great
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
Questions & Answers about Het feest is geweldig! We hebben veel gedanst.
Why does gedanst end in a -t instead of a -d?
It is the past participle of dansen (to dance). To form a regular past participle, you add ge- to the beginning of the stem and either -t or -d to the end. The stem is dans (from dansen minus -en). Because the stem ends in 's' — which is one of the consonants in the famous Dutch memory trick 't kofschip — it gets a -t. So: ge- + dans + -t = gedanst.
Why is gedanst at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, when you use a two-part verb tense like the present perfect, the helping verb (hebben) takes the normal second position in the sentence, but the past participle (gedanst) gets kicked to the very end of the clause.
Why is the word order veel gedanst instead of gedanst veel?
In English, we say 'danced a lot', putting the action before the amount. But in Dutch, because the past participle (gedanst) must go at the very end of the sentence, words that describe the action like veel (much / a lot) have to come before it.
Is there a rule for why it is het feest instead of de feest?
There is no strict rule to guess it here! Feest (party) is a neuter noun, which means it uses het. It is always highly recommended to memorize new nouns with their article (het feest) so you do not have to guess later.
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