Word
De buurman blijft die boom snoeien.
Meaning
The neighbor keeps pruning that tree.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De buurman blijft die boom snoeien.
de boom
tree
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
blijven
to stay
de buurman
the neighbor (male)
Questions & Answers about De buurman blijft die boom snoeien.
How does blijft mean "keeps" in this sentence?
The verb blijven usually means "to stay". But when you use it with another verb at the end of the sentence, like snoeien here, it means "to keep doing" that action. So blijft ... snoeien means "keeps pruning".
Why is the verb snoeien at the very end of the sentence?
This is a classic Dutch word order rule. When you have two verbs working together, the conjugated verb (blijft) takes the second position, and the infinitive verb (snoeien) gets kicked all the way to the end. The object, die boom, goes in between.
Why do we use die instead of dat for "that tree"?
Boom is a de word (de boom). For de words, we always use die to say "that" and deze to say "this". If it were a het word, you would use dat or dit.
Do I need to conjugate snoeien to match de buurman?
No! When you use blijven to say someone keeps doing something, only blijven is conjugated to match the subject (blijft). The action they keep doing is always in its full dictionary form (snoeien).