Breakdown of Mijn vriend en ik gaan in de herfst samenwonen.
ik
I
en
and
de vriend
the friend
in
in
gaan
to go / to go off (of an alarm)
mijn
my
de herfst
the autumn
samenwonen
to live together
Questions & Answers about Mijn vriend en ik gaan in de herfst samenwonen.
How does the future tense work in this sentence?
This sentence uses gaan as a helper verb to talk about the future. When you use gaan, the main action verb—in this case, samenwonen (to live together)—gets pushed to the very end of the sentence in its full dictionary form (the infinitive).
Does vriend always mean "boyfriend"?
Not always! Vriend can mean either a male friend or a boyfriend. The meaning depends on the context. Here, because they are going to live together, "boyfriend" is the most natural translation. To explicitly say "a male friend of mine" without romantic implications, you would say een vriend van mij.
I remember that samenwonen is a separable verb. Why isn't it split up here?
You are right, samenwonen (made of samen + wonen) is a separable verb! However, separable verbs only split when they are the active, conjugated verb in the sentence (like in Wij wonen samen). Because the helper verb gaan pushes it to the end of the sentence as an infinitive, samenwonen stays glued together here.
Could I put the time phrase at the end, like "Mijn vriend en ik gaan samenwonen in de herfst"?
It is much better to put it in the middle. In Dutch, time phrases like in de herfst (in the autumn) belong early in the sentence, usually right after the conjugated verb. The infinitive verb (samenwonen) acts like a wall at the very end of the sentence, so the time phrase must come before it.
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