Word
De hond ligt naast de fontein te slapen.
Meaning
The dog is sleeping next to the fountain.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De hond ligt naast de fontein te slapen.
de hond
the dog
slapen
to sleep
naast
next to
liggen
to lie
Questions & Answers about De hond ligt naast de fontein te slapen.
Why use ligt ... te slapen instead of a literal translation for 'is sleeping'?
English uses 'is' plus an '-ing' word for ongoing actions, but Dutch often uses a posture verb (staan, zitten, liggen, or lopen) plus te and the full verb. Because dogs typically lie down to sleep, we use ligt here to say the dog 'is sleeping'.
Why is naast de fontein placed between ligt and te slapen?
In this structure, the posture verb (ligt) takes the normal second position in the sentence. The te plus full verb (te slapen) gets pushed all the way to the very end. The location (naast de fontein) gets sandwiched between them.
What if the dog was falling asleep while sitting up? Could I use zit?
Exactly! The posture verb has to match reality. If the dog is sitting up while dozing off, you would say De hond zit te slapen. Since lying down is the standard way to sleep, ligt is the most common choice.
Could I just say De hond slaapt naast de fontein?
Yes, the simple present tense (slaapt) is also perfectly fine to use. However, using ligt te slapen puts extra focus on the fact that the action is ongoing right at this very moment.