Learn Dutch: Het hout is mooi. Ik wil ermee werken. - The wood is beautiful. I want to work with it.

In Dutch, you cannot use a regular preposition followed by a pronoun like het or hem when referring to an inanimate object (like het hout). Instead, you must combine er (there) with the preposition. So, "with it" becomes the fused word ermee.

The word for "with" is normally met. Why is it mee in ermee?

When the preposition met combines with er, it always changes its spelling to mee. This is a special exception just for this preposition. You will never see "ermet" in Dutch.

Can ermee be split into two separate words?

When they sit right next to each other to mean "with it", they are always written as one fused word. In longer sentences, other words can sometimes step between them and split them apart, but in a short sentence like this, they must stick together as ermee.

Why is the verb werken at the very end of the second sentence?

This is due to the modal verb wil (want). When you use a modal verb, it takes the standard second position in the sentence, and the main action verb (werken) gets pushed all the way to the end.