Breakdown of In de zomer gaan we het feest buiten vieren.
in
in
buiten
outside
het feest
the party
gaan
to go / to go off (of an alarm)
de zomer
the summer
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
vieren
to celebrate
Questions & Answers about In de zomer gaan we het feest buiten vieren.
Why are gaan and vieren at opposite ends of the sentence?
In Dutch, when you use gaan (to go) to form the future tense, it takes the spotlight as the conjugated verb in the second position. The action you are actually going to do (vieren, meaning to celebrate) stays in its full dictionary form (the infinitive) and gets pushed to the very end of the sentence.
Why does it say gaan we instead of we gaan?
This happens because of the Dutch verb-second rule. The sentence starts with the time phrase In de zomer. Because that time phrase takes the first position in the sentence, the verb gaan must take the second position. The subject we is forced to step in line right behind the verb.
What happens to the word order if I start the sentence with We instead?
If you put the subject first, you no longer need to invert the verb. The sentence would become: We gaan in de zomer het feest buiten vieren. Notice how the two verbs still form a frame around the other information, with vieren sitting at the very end!
Why is buiten placed right before vieren?
Buiten (outside) tells us the location of the action. In Dutch sentences, time (in de zomer) and the object (het feest) usually come before the place. Since the infinitive verb (vieren) has a strict rule to be at the absolute end of the sentence, the location buiten is tucked in right before it.
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