Word
We drinken koffie nadat we de machine uitzetten.
Meaning
We drink coffee after we turn off the machine.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of We drinken koffie nadat we de machine uitzetten.
drinken
to drink
de koffie
the coffee
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
de machine
the machine
Questions & Answers about We drinken koffie nadat we de machine uitzetten.
Why is uitzetten at the very end of the sentence?
The word nadat (after) is a subordinating conjunction. This means it introduces a subclause, which always pushes its working verb to the very end of the sentence. That is why the word order changes to nadat we de machine uitzetten instead of the regular Subject-Verb-Object order.
Uitzetten (to turn off) is a separable verb. Why aren't we splitting it into zetten ... uit here?
In a normal main sentence, you would split it: We zetten de machine uit. However, because nadat pushes the verb all the way to the end of the sentence, the two parts of the separable verb are forced into the exact same spot. Whenever that happens, they glue back together into one single word: uitzetten.
Could I just say na instead of nadat?
No, you have to use nadat here because it connects two full clauses (it is followed by a new subject and a verb: we ... uitzetten). You only use na when it is followed just by a noun, such as in na de koffie (after the coffee) or na het werk (after work).