Word
Zij wenden niet snel aan de nieuwe wijk.
Meaning
They did not get used to the new neighborhood quickly.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Zij wenden niet snel aan de nieuwe wijk.
How do we know to use -den to make the past tense here?
The infinitive verb is wennen (to get used to). To form the regular past tense, we find the stem by removing '-en', which gives us wen. Because the last letter n is a voiced consonant (it is not in the unvoiced consonants memory aid 't kofschip), we add -den for a plural subject like zij (they). This gives us wenden.
What is the word aan doing in this sentence?
It belongs to the verb! The Dutch expression for 'to get used to' is wennen aan. Just like in English, you need this preposition to connect the verb to the thing you are getting used to, which in this case is de nieuwe wijk (the new neighborhood).
Why does nieuw have an -e at the end in this sentence?
Adjectives usually get an -e added to them when they are placed directly before a noun. Because wijk (neighborhood) is a de-word and it comes after the specific article de, the adjective nieuw (new) changes to nieuwe.
How would you write this sentence if the subject was 'he' instead of 'they'?