Breakdown of De journalist die het nieuws vertelt, praat te snel.
snel
fast
praten
to talk
te
too
vertellen
to tell
het nieuws
the news
die
who / that (relative pronoun)
de journalist
the journalist
Questions & Answers about De journalist die het nieuws vertelt, praat te snel.
Why do we use die for "who"? Doesn't wie mean "who"?
While wie is the question word for "who", Dutch doesn't normally use it to connect sentences like this. To say "the journalist who...", you use a relative pronoun: either die or dat. Because journalist is a de-word (de journalist), we use die.
Why is vertelt (tells) at the end of its part of the sentence?
The phrase die het nieuws vertelt is a relative clause, meaning it gives more info about the noun before it. Relative clauses follow subclause word order, which means the working verb (vertelt) gets pushed all the way to the end of that clause.
Why are two verbs right next to each other separated only by a comma (vertelt, praat)?
This happens because two different clauses are meeting. The verb vertelt finishes the relative clause. The entire chunk De journalist die het nieuws vertelt acts as one big subject block (Position 1). To follow the Dutch "verb second" rule in the main sentence, the main verb praat must come immediately after this long subject.
Why is it het nieuws? Does the "s" at the end mean it is plural?
No, just like in English, nieuws (news) is treated as a singular concept. In Dutch, it is a singular het-word.
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