Breakdown of De muis rende weg en ik deed niets.
ik
I
en
and
doen
to do
rennen
to run
niets
nothing
weg
away, gone
de muis
the mouse
Questions & Answers about De muis rende weg en ik deed niets.
Why does the sentence use deed instead of a regular past tense ending?
Deed is the irregular simple past tense of the verb doen (to do). Because it is an irregular strong verb, it doesn't follow the normal past tense rules and just has to be memorized. For singular subjects like ik it is deed, and for plural subjects it becomes deden.
Why is weg separated from rende?
This comes from the separable verb wegrennen (to run away). In a normal main clause, the core verb (rende) takes the second position in the sentence, while the prefix (weg) is pushed to the very end of that clause.
Is rende an irregular verb like deed?
No, rennen (to run) is a regular verb. To form the past tense, you take the stem (ren) and add -de. It gets a -de ending instead of -te because the letter 'n' is not in the 't kofschip memory rule.
Why doesn't the word en change the word order of ik deed niets?
The word en (and) is a coordinating conjunction, which simply means it links two sentences together without affecting the word order. Because of this, ik deed niets gets to keep the standard Subject-Verb-Object word order, just as if it were standing on its own.
Learn De muis rende weg en ik deed niets and more in Dutch
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free