Breakdown of Je mag die bloemen blijven planten.
de bloem
the flower
mogen
to be allowed to / may
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
blijven
to stay
je
you (unstressed form of jij)
planten
to plant
Questions & Answers about Je mag die bloemen blijven planten.
Why are there three verbs in this sentence, and why are two of them at the end?
The main verb is the modal mag (may or are allowed to), which takes the second position. Modal verbs push any other verbs to the very end of the sentence. Here, those extra verbs are the continuous action pair blijven planten (keep planting).
Does blijven always have to come right before the action verb it goes with?
Yes. In this structure, blijven acts like a helping verb to show that the action is continuing. In a group of infinitives at the end of a sentence, the helping verb (blijven) comes before the main action verb (planten).
Why do we use die for 'those' instead of dat?
Because bloemen (flowers) is plural. In Dutch, you always use die or deze for plural nouns, even if the singular version of the word is a het word.
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