Word
Het gebouw op het eiland is heel hoog.
Meaning
The building on the island is very high.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Het gebouw op het eiland is heel hoog.
Since this lesson is about comparatives, how would I change this sentence to say the building is higher?
To make hoog (high) comparative, you add -er. But because of Dutch spelling rules for keeping vowels long in open syllables, one o drops out, making it hoger. You could say: Het gebouw is hoger dan de boom (The building is higher than the tree).
Why doesn't hoog get an -e ending here?
Because it comes after the verb is rather than directly before the noun. Adjectives only get an -e ending when they are placed right in front of the noun they describe, as in het hoge gebouw (the high building).
Both gebouw and eiland use het. Is there a rule to help remember this?
Gebouw starts with the prefix ge-, and almost all nouns starting with ge-, be-, or ver- are het words. Eiland ends in -land, and all words ending in -land are also het words.
Wait, doesn't heel mean "whole"?
It can mean both! When used right before an adjective like hoog, it acts as an adverb meaning "very". When placed before a noun, it means "whole" or "entire", like in het hele gebouw (the whole building).