Breakdown of Er staan drie motoren bij het hek.
drie
three
staan
to stand
bij
at / near / by
er
there (existential)
de motor
the motorcycle / the engine
het hek
the fence
Questions & Answers about Er staan drie motoren bij het hek.
Why do we use staan (to stand) instead of zijn (to be) here?
In English, you say "There are...", but Dutch prefers to use posture verbs like staan, liggen (to lie), or zitten (to sit) to describe where something is located. Because motorcycles rest upright on their wheels, we use staan.
Why does the sentence start with er?
Er acts as a dummy subject here, just like "there" in English. We use it because the real subject, drie motoren (three motorcycles), is indefinite. Dutch almost always uses er to introduce new, indefinite subjects rather than putting them at the very beginning of the sentence.
Could I just say "Drie motoren staan bij het hek"?
While people would understand you, it sounds unnatural. When stating the existence or location of an indefinite subject, Dutch strongly prefers the structure er + verb + subject + location.
Why is the verb staan plural if er is just one word?
The verb always matches the real subject of the sentence, not the dummy subject er. Since drie motoren is plural, the verb must be the plural form staan.
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