Breakdown of Ze kopen paraplu's, want het gaat regenen.
kopen
to buy
gaan
to go / to go off (of an alarm)
het
it
want
because
Questions & Answers about Ze kopen paraplu's, want het gaat regenen.
Why does paraplu's get an apostrophe instead of just adding an 's'?
In Dutch, nouns ending in a single vowel (like a, i, o, u, or y) get an apostrophe plus s for the plural. This keeps the vowel sounding long. If we wrote paraplus, the u would incorrectly sound short, like the 'u' in the English word 'bus'.
How do we know ze means 'they' and not 'she' here?
You can tell by the verb that follows it! Kopen is the plural form of the verb ('are buying' or 'buy'). If ze meant 'she', the verb would be singular: ze koopt (she is buying).
Why is it gaat regenen instead of just regent?
Gaat (from gaan, meaning 'to go') is used here to talk about the future, just like 'going to' in English. So het gaat regenen translates directly to 'it is going to rain', showing that the rain is expected soon.
Why does the second part of the sentence have normal word order after want?
The word want (because) links two independent sentences together without changing the word order. The second half just follows the normal subject-verb rule: het (subject) + gaat (verb). If you used omdat (which also means 'because'), the word order rules would change and push the verbs to the end.