Breakdown of Je snijdt het materiaal niet, maar het wordt gesmolten.
niet
not
maar
but
het
it
worden
to become
je
you (unstressed form of jij)
het materiaal
the material
smelten
to melt
snijden
to cut
Questions & Answers about Je snijdt het materiaal niet, maar het wordt gesmolten.
Why does the Dutch sentence use wordt instead of is for "is melted"?
In Dutch, the present passive voice is formed with the auxiliary verb worden (to become). While English uses the verb "to be" (it is melted), Dutch literally says "it becomes melted" to show that the action is happening right now. If you used is instead of wordt, it would mean the melting process was already completely finished.
Why is the past participle gesmolten at the very end of the sentence?
This follows the standard Dutch rule for verb placement. In a main clause, the conjugated verb (here, the auxiliary wordt) takes the second position. Any other verbs in the phrase, like the past participle gesmolten, are pushed to the very end of the clause.
Does the word maar (but) change the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No, it doesn't. Maar is a coordinating conjunction, which means it just links two regular main clauses together without changing their internal structure. The second clause (het wordt gesmolten) follows the normal Subject-Verb word order just like the first one.
Why is snijdt spelled with dt at the end?
The stem of the verb snijden (to cut) is snijd. When you use the pronoun je (you) before the verb, you add a -t to the stem, resulting in snijdt. Remember that if je came after the verb instead, it would drop the -t and just be snijd je.
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