Breakdown of Is er een supermarkt dichtbij?
zijn
to be
een
a/an
de supermarkt
the supermarket
dichtbij
nearby
er
there (existential)
Questions & Answers about Is er een supermarkt dichtbij?
Why does the sentence start with Is er instead of Er is?
To turn a statement into a yes/no question in Dutch, you swap the verb and the subject. The statement is Er is een supermarkt (There is a supermarket). To make it a question, you swap the verb (is) and er to get Is er een supermarkt?.
Does er mean 'there' as in a specific physical location?
Not in this sentence! Here, er is works exactly like the English 'there is' to talk about the general existence of something. If you want to point to a specific physical location ('over there'), you would use the word daar instead.
What is the word dichtbij made of?
Dichtbij translates to 'nearby'. It is literally a combination of the words dicht (which can mean 'close') and bij (which means 'near' or 'by'). You will often see it placed at the end of a sentence to talk about a location.
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