Het is vreemd, want ik zie mijn sleutel nergens.
It is strange, because I do not see my key anywhere.
Breakdown of Het is vreemd, want ik zie mijn sleutel nergens.
ik
I
zijn
to be
zien
to see
mijn
my
de sleutel
the key
het
it
want
because
vreemd
strange / weird
nergens
nowhere / not anywhere
Questions & Answers about Het is vreemd, want ik zie mijn sleutel nergens.
The translation says 'do not see ... anywhere', but I don't see a word for 'not' here. Why?
The word nergens means 'nowhere' or 'not anywhere'. Similar to how niets means 'not anything' and niemand means 'not anybody', the negative meaning is already built into the word. You never use niet together with nergens.
Why is nergens placed at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, words that make a sentence negative (like niet or nergens) usually come after the specific object you are talking about. Because mijn sleutel (my key) is a specific object, nergens is placed after it.
Both want and omdat mean 'because'. Why does the verb zie stay in its normal place here?
The word want joins two normal sentences together without changing their word order. If you used omdat, the verb would be pushed to the very end of the sentence: ... omdat ik mijn sleutel nergens zie.
Does nergens change if I am looking for multiple keys?
No, nergens stays exactly the same. Just like the indefinite pronouns iets, niets, iemand, and niemand, the word nergens never changes its form to match singular or plural words.
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