Word
Het was mijn fout, want ik had niet goed opgelet.
Meaning
It was my mistake, because I had not paid close attention.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Het was mijn fout, want ik had niet goed opgelet.
How is the past perfect tense formed in this sentence?
It is formed using had (the simple past of hebben) and the past participle opgelet. Just like in English ("had paid"), the past perfect is used here to describe an action that happened before another event in the past (it was my mistake).
Why does the past participle opgelet have -ge- in the middle?
The infinitive is opletten (to pay attention), which is a separable verb made of op + letten. When forming the past participle of a separable verb, the -ge- is always sandwiched between the prefix and the main verb part: op + ge + let.
Why doesn't the word want push the verb had to the end of the sentence?
Want (because) is a coordinating conjunction. This means it connects two normal main clauses, so the word order after it stays regular: subject (ik) followed by the working verb (had). If you used the other Dutch word for "because" (omdat), it would push the verb to the end: ... omdat ik niet goed had opgelet.
Why is goed translated as "close" here instead of "good"?