Breakdown of We haalden de sleutels van het nieuwe huis.
het huis
the house
de sleutel
the key
nieuw
new
halen
to fetch / to get
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
Questions & Answers about We haalden de sleutels van het nieuwe huis.
Why does the verb end in -den instead of -ten?
To form the simple past, we look at the root of the verb halen. Removing the -en gives the root haal. Since the last letter is l, which is a voiced consonant (it is not in the 't kofschip list of voiceless consonants), we add -de or -den. Because we is plural, we use -den.
The infinitive is halen with one 'a', so why does haalden have two?
The 'a' in halen is a long vowel because it is at the end of a syllable (ha-len). When we find the root by dropping -en, we are left with hal. This would be pronounced with a short 'a'. To keep the original long 'a' sound, we have to double it to make the root haal before adding -den.
Why use van here when the English translation says keys to the house?
In Dutch, we say de sleutels van (literally: the keys of). While English uses 'to' for keys, Dutch treats the keys as belonging to the house, so you must always use van.
Why is it nieuwe huis with an -e at the end, if huis is a het word?
You are right that huis is a het word! Adjectives in front of het words only drop the -e ending when used with een (a) or no article at all, like een nieuw huis. Because we are using the specific article het (the) here, the adjective gets the standard -e ending.
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