Breakdown of De robot werkt 's nachts en bovendien hoeven jullie hem niet te helpen.
en
and
niet
not
jullie
you (plural)
werken
to work
Questions & Answers about De robot werkt 's nachts en bovendien hoeven jullie hem niet te helpen.
How does the "do not have to" structure work in this sentence?
To say you "do not have to" do something in Dutch, you use a form of the verb hoeven combined with niet (not) and te + an infinitive verb. Here, hoeven is conjugated to match the subject jullie (you all). Then we add niet, and place te helpen (to help) at the very end of the sentence.
Why is the word order hoeven jullie instead of jullie hoeven?
The second part of the sentence starts with the adverb bovendien (moreover) right after the connecting word en (and). Because bovendien takes the first position in this new clause, the verb hoeven must come second. This forces the subject jullie to move after the verb, a common rule called inversion.
Why do we use hem (him) to refer to the robot?
Robot is a masculine de-word in Dutch. Because of this, you refer to it as an object using the masculine pronoun hem (him). In English, you would just say "it".
What is the apostrophe doing in 's nachts?