Breakdown of Hij moet er veel werken.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
veel
much / many / a lot of
werken
to work
moeten
to have to, must
Questions & Answers about Hij moet er veel werken.
Why do we use er here instead of daar to mean "there"?
Daar is used when you want to put emphasis on the location, like pointing and saying "over there". Er is the unstressed version. You use er when the location is just background information and has already been mentioned or is understood from the context.
Why is werken at the very end of the sentence?
This sentence uses a modal verb (moeten, meaning "must" or "to have to"). In Dutch, the conjugated modal verb (moet) takes the second position in the sentence and pushes the main action verb (werken) all the way to the end in its full dictionary form.
Why does er come right after moet?
In Dutch sentence structure, er likes to sit as close to the beginning of the sentence as possible. It usually goes right after the conjugated verb (and the subject, if the subject isn't first). It naturally comes before other details like veel (a lot).
Does moet always translate to "must"?
It can mean "must", but moeten is used much more often in Dutch than "must" is in English. Where an English speaker would naturally say "He has to work there a lot", a Dutch speaker uses moet.