Word
Wie is de slimste speler van het team?
Meaning
Who is the smartest player on the team?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Wie is de slimste speler van het team?
zijn
to be
wie
who
het team
the team
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
Questions & Answers about Wie is de slimste speler van het team?
Why does slimste have an -e at the end?
The base word is slim (smart). To make it a superlative (smartest), we add -st to get slimst. Because it describes the noun speler and comes after the article de, it gets the standard -e ending that most adjectives take in this position, becoming slimste.
How do I know whether to use de or het before the superlative here?
The article always matches the noun being described. The noun is speler, which is a de word. Therefore, we use de to say de slimste speler. If the noun were a het word like kind (child), it would be het slimste kind.
Why do we use van here when the English translation says on the team?
Prepositions rarely translate word-for-word. While in English someone plays on a team, Dutch treats team membership as belonging, so you literally say a player of the team (van het team).
Why does the word team get the article het instead of de?
Team is a neuter word in Dutch, so it always takes het. Many nouns borrowed from English become het words, though it is always best to memorize the article whenever you learn a new noun!