Questions & Answers about Mijn sleutel is verdwenen.
Why does the Dutch sentence literally say "is disappeared" instead of "has disappeared"?
In Dutch, the present perfect tense is usually formed with the verb hebben (to have), just like in English. However, verbs that indicate a change of state or a direction of motion use the verb zijn (to be) as their helping verb instead. Because disappearing is a change of state (going from being there to not being there), it takes zijn. That is why we say is verdwenen.
Why doesn't the past participle verdwenen start with ge- like most other verbs?
Most Dutch past participles get the prefix ge-, like gewerkt or gespeeld. But if a verb already starts with certain fixed, unstressed prefixes like ver-, be-, ge-, or ont-, it does not get an extra ge- added to it. Since the verb is verdwijnen, the past participle simply keeps the ver- and becomes verdwenen.
Is verdwenen an irregular verb? It doesn't look like a standard past participle.
Yes, it is a "strong" or irregular verb. The dictionary form (infinitive) is verdwijnen (to disappear). In the past tense, its vowel changes from ij to a long e sound. Instead of getting a standard -t or -d at the end, strong verbs usually end in -en in their past participle form, which gives us verdwenen.
If I want to add more words, like "yesterday", where do they go?
In Dutch, the past participle always goes at the very end of the sentence. In this short sentence, the helping verb (is) and the past participle (verdwenen) happen to be next to each other. If you add more information, it goes between them. For example: Mijn sleutel is gisteren verdwenen (My key has disappeared yesterday).
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