Word
Komen jullie elkaar vaak in de stad tegen?
Meaning
Do you often run into each other in the city?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Komen jullie elkaar vaak in de stad tegen?
jullie
you (plural)
in
in
de stad
the city
vaak
often
Questions & Answers about Komen jullie elkaar vaak in de stad tegen?
Why are komen and tegen separated at opposite ends of the sentence?
They belong together as the separable verb tegenkomen (to run into / to meet by chance). In a yes/no question like this, the conjugated part of the verb (komen) goes at the very beginning, and the separable prefix (tegen) is pushed to the end of the sentence.
What exactly does elkaar do here?
elkaar is the reciprocal pronoun meaning "each other." In this sentence, it acts as the direct object of tegenkomen. It shows that the action goes both ways: one person runs into the other, and vice versa.
Could I use elkaars in this sentence?
No, because elkaars translates to "each other's" and is used exclusively to show possession (for example, "We hold each other's hands"). Because you are running into the people themselves, you just use the base form elkaar.
Why is vaak placed after elkaar instead of before it?
In Dutch word order, definite or specific direct objects—like the pronoun elkaar—usually come before adverbs of time and frequency like vaak (often). If the object were non-specific (like "people"), the adverb would usually come first.