Breakdown of Wordt het korte gedicht door de dichter vertaald?
kort
short
worden
to become
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
het gedicht
the poem
vertalen
to translate
de dichter
the poet
Questions & Answers about Wordt het korte gedicht door de dichter vertaald?
Why do we use door to mean "by" in this sentence?
In Dutch passive sentences, the person or thing doing the action is introduced by the preposition door. While English uses "by" for many things (like location or time), Dutch specifically uses door when saying an action is done by someone. Here, the translating is done door de dichter (by the poet).
Why is the verb vertaald at the very end of the sentence?
This sentence is a yes/no question in the passive voice. The helping verb worden (here as wordt) goes at the beginning to form the question, which pushes the main action verb (the past participle vertaald) to the very end of the sentence.
Gedicht is a het-word. Why does kort get an extra -e to become korte?
You only drop the -e from an adjective before a singular het-word if it is indefinite (meaning it comes after een, geen, or no article at all). Because we are using the definite article het (the) in het korte gedicht, the adjective gets the standard -e ending.
Are the words gedicht and dichter related?
Yes! A gedicht is a poem, and a dichter is a poet. They both come from the verb dichten, which means to write poetry.
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