Breakdown of De boer maakt foto's van de kalveren.
maken
to make
de foto
the photo
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
het kalf
the calf
de boer
the farmer
Questions & Answers about De boer maakt foto's van de kalveren.
What is the singular form of kalveren and why does it look like this?
The singular is het kalf (the calf). It belongs to a small group of irregular nouns that take the special -eren plural ending. Notice that the f at the end of kalf also changes to a v before the vowel ending, which is a standard Dutch spelling rule.
Why do we use maakt (makes) here when the English translation says "takes"?
In Dutch, you don't "take" a picture, you "make" it! The standard expression is een foto maken. If you translated "takes photos" literally as neemt foto's, a Dutch person would think you are physically picking up photographs and carrying them away.
Why does foto's have an apostrophe before the plural 's'?
Dutch adds an apostrophe plus s to make a plural when a noun ends in a single open vowel (like a, i, o, u, or y). This is done to keep the vowel sounding "long". If it were spelled fotos, the spelling rules would make the 'o' sound like a short vowel.
The singular is het kalf, so why does the sentence say de kalveren?
This is a great rule to remember: no matter if a noun is a de-word or a het-word in the singular, its plural form always takes the article de.
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