Word
Waarom staat de toerist naar het gebouw te wijzen?
Meaning
Why is the tourist pointing at the building?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Waarom staat de toerist naar het gebouw te wijzen?
naar
to
staan
to stand
waarom
why
het gebouw
the building
Questions & Answers about Waarom staat de toerist naar het gebouw te wijzen?
Why does the sentence use staat if the translation just says "is pointing"?
In Dutch, to say someone is currently doing something, you often use a posture verb (staan, zitten, liggen, or lopen) + te + an action verb. Here, staat te wijzen literally means "stands to point." It tells us not just that the tourist is pointing, but also that they are standing while doing it!
Why are staat and te wijzen separated from each other?
In this continuous structure, the posture verb (staat) acts as the main conjugated verb, so it takes the second position in the sentence (right after the question word waarom). The te + infinitive part (te wijzen) gets pushed all the way to the end of the sentence. Everything else, like the subject and the object, goes in the middle.
Could I say loopt te wijzen instead of staat te wijzen?
Yes, but it changes the meaning! You must choose the posture verb that matches what the person is physically doing. If the tourist were walking around while pointing, you would use loopt te wijzen. If they were sitting on a bench pointing, it would be zit te wijzen.
In English we say pointing "at" a building. Why does Dutch use naar?