Breakdown of Dit is het appartement waarvoor we veel huur betalen.
zijn
to be
veel
much / many / a lot of
betalen
to pay
dit
this (neuter)
Questions & Answers about Dit is het appartement waarvoor we veel huur betalen.
Why is it waarvoor instead of something like "voor wat" or "voor welk"?
In Dutch, when a preposition (like voor) is used with a relative pronoun referring to an inanimate object (a thing, not a person), they combine into a single word starting with waar-. So, "for which" becomes waarvoor. You cannot say "voor wat" or "voor dat" in this situation.
Does waarvoor change if the noun is a de word instead of a het word?
No! One of the nice things about waar + preposition combinations is that they don't change based on the gender of the noun. Whether it refers to het appartement or a de word like de flat (the flat), you still use waarvoor.
In English, we just say "the apartment we pay rent for" without "which" or "that". Can I drop waarvoor in Dutch?
No, you can't. In English, it is common to drop the relative pronoun, but in Dutch, you must always include it. You have to keep waarvoor to connect the two parts of the sentence.
Why is the verb betalen at the very end of the sentence?
The word waarvoor introduces a relative clause, which is a type of subclause. In Dutch subclauses, all verbs are pushed to the end. That is why the word order becomes ...waarvoor we veel huur betalen instead of putting the verb right after we.