Breakdown of We hebben op de breedste straat gespeeld.
hebben
to have
spelen
to play
op
on
de straat
the street
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
breed
wide
Questions & Answers about We hebben op de breedste straat gespeeld.
Why does the superlative breedst get an -e at the end here?
Just like regular adjectives, a superlative gets an -e added to it when it comes directly before a noun. Because straat (street) is a de word, we use the article de, and breedst (widest) becomes breedste.
Why does breedste keep its double ee, unlike some other adjectives that drop a vowel?
The base word is breed (wide). When you add -ste, the word breaks into syllables like this: breed-ste. Because the first syllable ends in a consonant (d), it is a "closed" syllable. To keep the long vowel sound, the double ee must stay. If it were an open syllable (like in gro-te), one vowel would drop!
In English we usually say "played in the street". Why does Dutch use op?
In Dutch, you are seen as being physically on top of the street surface, so the standard preposition is op (on). A common fixed phrase is op straat spelen (to play in the street). Here, we are talking about a specific street, so it is op de breedste straat.
Why is gespeeld at the very end of the sentence?
This is a rule from the present perfect tense. The helping verb hebben (have) takes the normal second position in the sentence, but the past participle gespeeld (played) gets pushed all the way to the end.
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