Word
In het dorp groet je elkaar altijd.
Meaning
In the village you always greet each other.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of In het dorp groet je elkaar altijd.
in
in
altijd
always
het dorp
the village
je
you (unstressed form of jij)
Questions & Answers about In het dorp groet je elkaar altijd.
Who is je referring to in this sentence?
Here, je doesn't mean the specific person you are talking to. It is used as an indefinite pronoun, similar to saying "one" or "people in general" in English. The sentence really means that people in the village always greet each other.
Why is the word order groet je instead of je groet?
Because the sentence starts with the location In het dorp (In the village). In Dutch, when a sentence starts with a phrase other than the subject, the verb and the subject swap places. This rule is called inversion.
How can we use elkaar (each other) with a singular word like je?
Even though je is grammatically a singular word, when used as an indefinite pronoun it represents "people" in general. Because it implies a group of people, you can naturally use elkaar to show that they greet one another.
Did the verb groet drop its 't' ending because it comes before je?
The spelling actually doesn't change here. The verb is groeten (to greet) and its basic stem is groet. While verbs normally drop the extra 't' ending when placed before je or jij in questions or inversions, this verb's stem already ends in a 't' naturally.