Breakdown of We hebben gisteravond de pizza gegeten en de wijn gedronken.
en
and
hebben
to have
eten
to eat
drinken
to drink
gisteravond
yesterday evening
de pizza
the pizza
de wijn
the wine
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
Questions & Answers about We hebben gisteravond de pizza gegeten en de wijn gedronken.
Why do gegeten and gedronken end in -en instead of -t or -d?
Because they are irregular past participles. Regular past participles usually end in -t or -d, but many high-frequency verbs like eten (to eat) and drinken (to drink) get an -en ending in the past tense: gegeten and gedronken. You just have to memorize these forms!
Why is hebben only used once if there are two past actions?
Since both actions were done by we (we), you can share the helping verb hebben across both parts of the sentence. Just like in English ('We have eaten the pizza and drunk the wine'), you don't need to repeat the helping verb after en (and).
Why do gegeten and gedronken come after the food and drink?
In Dutch, when you use a past tense with a helping verb like hebben, the helping verb takes the standard second position in the sentence, but the past participle gets pushed to the very end of its phrase. That is why gegeten comes after de pizza and gedronken comes after de wijn.
How do we get 'last night' from gisteravond?
Gisteravond is a combination of gisteren (yesterday) and avond (evening). Dutch often glues words together like this. It literally means 'yesterday evening', which is how Dutch speakers usually translate 'last night' when talking about dinner time or evening activities.
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