Word
Mijn gum is heel klein, dus gebruik ik liever de jouwe.
Meaning
My eraser is very small, so I prefer to use yours.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Mijn gum is heel klein, dus gebruik ik liever de jouwe.
Why is it de jouwe and not het jouwe?
The pronoun refers back to the noun gum (eraser). Because it is de gum, we use de jouwe to mean "yours" (your eraser). If it were a het-word, like het boek, you would use het jouwe.
How does liever translate to "prefer to" here?
In English, we use the verb "to prefer". In Dutch, it is much more common to use a normal verb plus the adverb liever (which literally means "rather"). So gebruik ik liever literally means "I use rather," which translates naturally to "I prefer to use."
Why is the word order gebruik ik instead of ik gebruik after dus?
Dus (so/therefore) is acting as the first piece of information in this second clause. In Dutch, the verb always wants to be in the second position. Because dus takes position one, the verb (gebruik) takes position two, pushing the subject (ik) to position three. Note: you might also hear dus ik gebruik, which is also correct, but this swapped word order is very common.