Word
Hij huilt terwijl hij de ui snijdt.
Meaning
He cries while he is cutting the onion.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hij huilt terwijl hij de ui snijdt.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
huilen
to cry
terwijl
while
snijden
to cut
Questions & Answers about Hij huilt terwijl hij de ui snijdt.
Why is the verb snijdt at the very end of the sentence?
Terwijl (while) is a subordinating conjunction. This means it introduces a dependent clause (a part of the sentence that cannot stand alone) and pushes the conjugated verb to the end of that clause. That is why we say terwijl hij de ui snijdt instead of terwijl hij snijdt de ui.
The English translation says 'is cutting'. Why doesn't the Dutch sentence use a continuous form?
In Dutch, the simple present tense is usually enough to show an action is happening right now. While you could technically use the continuous form here (terwijl hij de ui aan het snijden is), simply using snijdt is much more natural and common.
Why does the verb snijdt end in '-dt'?
The infinitive of the verb is snijden (to cut). If you remove the '-en', the stem is snijd. Since the subject is hij (he), we add a '-t' to the stem following the normal present tense rules. This makes snijdt, which is pronounced exactly the same as if it only had a 't'.
Why is it 'de ui' instead of 'het ui'?
Ui (onion) is a de-word. There is no strict rule for why it takes de instead of het, so it is a good idea to memorize the article along with the word. The plural form is uien.