Word
Gisteren maakte ik het verslag meteen af.
Meaning
Yesterday I finished the report immediately.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Gisteren maakte ik het verslag meteen af.
ik
I
meteen
immediately
gisteren
yesterday
afmaken
to finish
Questions & Answers about Gisteren maakte ik het verslag meteen af.
Why does the past tense of this verb end in '-te' instead of '-de'?
The verb here is afmaken. To find the past tense, we look at the root of the word without -en, which is maak. Because maak ends in k, which is one of the voiceless consonants in the memory aid 't kofschip, we add -te instead of -de.
Where did the word af at the end of the sentence come from?
It is part of the verb! The full infinitive is afmaken (to finish). This is a separable verb. In a normal main clause, the core verb (maakte) takes the second position, and the prefix (af) gets pushed all the way to the end of the sentence.
Why is the word order maakte ik instead of ik maakte?
Because the sentence starts with the time word Gisteren (Yesterday). In Dutch, whenever you start a sentence with anything other than the subject, the verb and subject swap places. This is called inversion.
Could I put af earlier in the sentence, right after the verb?
No, because afmaken is a separable verb, its prefix (af) must go at the very end of this clause. The object (het verslag) and adverbs like meteen all get sandwiched between the conjugated main verb (maakte) and its separated prefix.