Word
Het meisje was blij als ze een nieuwe pop had.
Meaning
The girl was happy when she had a new doll.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Het meisje was blij als ze een nieuwe pop had.
zijn
to be
een
a/an
het meisje
the girl
blij
happy
Questions & Answers about Het meisje was blij als ze een nieuwe pop had.
Why is had at the very end of the sentence?
The word als (when/if) is a subordinating conjunction. This means it introduces a dependent clause (als ze een nieuwe pop had) and pushes the conjugated verb in that clause (had) all the way to the end.
Why do we use had instead of hadden in this sentence?
Had is the singular past tense of hebben (to have). Even though ze can mean either 'she' or 'they', here it refers back to het meisje (the girl). Since it means 'she' (singular), we use had. If it meant 'they', we would use hadden.
Doesn't als usually mean 'if'? Why is it translated as 'when' here?
In Dutch, when talking about the past, you use toen for a single, specific event (like 'when she arrived'). However, you use als for repeated events in the past, meaning 'whenever' or 'every time'. Here, the girl was happy every time she had a new doll, so we use als.
Why does nieuwe get an -e at the end, but blij does not?
Nieuwe comes directly before the noun it describes (pop), so it gets the standard -e ending. Blij comes after the verb was, describing the girl indirectly. Adjectives that come after a verb like this (predicative adjectives) never get an -e ending.