Breakdown of Blijkbaar hadden ze het bericht genegeerd.
hebben
to have
het bericht
the message
ze
they; she (unstressed form of zij) / them (object)
blijkbaar
apparently
negeren
to ignore
Questions & Answers about Blijkbaar hadden ze het bericht genegeerd.
Why is the verb hadden before the subject ze?
Because the sentence starts with the adverb blijkbaar (apparently). In Dutch, when you start a main clause with anything other than the subject, the subject and the working verb swap places. This is called inversion. So it is Blijkbaar hadden ze... instead of Blijkbaar ze hadden....
How is the past perfect tense formed in this sentence?
Just like in English, the past perfect describes an action completed before another event in the past. It uses the past tense of a helping verb plus a past participle. Here, the helping verb is hadden (because ze is plural) and the past participle is genegeerd. Notice that the helping verb stays in the second position of the sentence, but the past participle is pushed all the way to the end.
Why does the past participle genegeerd end in a -d rather than a -t?
To know if a regular past participle ends in -d or -t, we look at the verb stem. The infinitive is negeren. If we remove the -en, the stem is negeer-, which ends in the letter r. Because r is not in the memory word 't kofschip (or soft ketchup), the past participle gets a -d.
Is bericht the only word for message? Could I use boodschap here?
Bericht is the best word here. It is used for written or digital messages, like a text, email, or notification. You might also hear boodschap, but that is usually used for a spoken message, a deeper meaning (like the message of a book or movie), or an errand.
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