Word
De kat is meteen verdwenen.
Meaning
The cat disappeared immediately.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De kat is meteen verdwenen.
zijn
to be
de kat
the cat
meteen
immediately
verdwijnen
to disappear
Questions & Answers about De kat is meteen verdwenen.
Why do we use is here instead of heeft? I thought the present perfect used the verb "to have".
In Dutch, most verbs use hebben (to have) as a helping verb for the present perfect. However, verbs that describe a change of state or a change of location—like verdwijnen (to disappear)—use zijn (to be) instead. So literally, the Dutch say "The cat is disappeared."
Why doesn't the past participle verdwenen start with ge-?
Most past participles in Dutch start with ge- (like gewerkt or geslapen). But if the original verb already starts with an unstressed prefix like ver-, be-, ge-, or ont-, it does not get an extra ge-. Because the verb is verdwijnen, the past participle is simply verdwenen.
Why is verdwenen at the very end of the sentence?
This is the standard word order for the present perfect in Dutch. The helping verb (is) takes the normal second position in the sentence, but the past participle (verdwenen) gets pushed all the way to the end, coming after the adverb meteen (immediately).
The English translation says "disappeared" (simple past). Why does Dutch use the present perfect?