Breakdown of Wij schrikken van het slechte nieuws.
wij
we
slecht
bad
het nieuws
the news
schrikken van
to be startled by
Questions & Answers about Wij schrikken van het slechte nieuws.
Why does the sentence use van when the English translation says "by"?
In Dutch, the verb schrikken (to be startled or to get a fright) is paired with the fixed preposition van. While we say "startled by" in English, you just have to memorize that Dutch uses schrikken van. Translating "by" directly as door would sound wrong here.
The English translation says "are startled". Where is the verb for "are" in the Dutch sentence?
There isn't one! In Dutch, schrikken is an active verb that means "to get a fright" or "to startle". So wij schrikken actively means "we startle", whereas English naturally prefers the passive phrase "we are startled".
Why is there an -e at the end of slechte?
Because nieuws is a het-word and it is preceded by the definite article het (the), the adjective gets an -e added to it. You only drop the -e for a het-word if you are using een (a) or no article at all, which would just be slecht nieuws (bad news).
Is nieuws plural since it ends in an s?
No, just like in English, nieuws is treated as a singular, uncountable concept. It is a het-word (het nieuws). It simply happens to end in an s.
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