Breakdown of Wij hebben veel geld besteed.
wij
we
hebben
to have
veel
much / many / a lot of
het geld
the money
besteden
to spend
Questions & Answers about Wij hebben veel geld besteed.
Why is there no "ge-" at the beginning of besteed?
The infinitive verb is besteden (to spend). Because it starts with the unstressed prefix be-, it is an inseparable verb. Verbs that start with prefixes like be-, ver-, ont-, ge-, her-, or er- do not get the standard ge- added to their past participle. So, the past participle is just besteed, not gebesteed.
How do we know besteed ends in a 'd' and not a 't'?
We look at the stem of the verb. If you take the infinitive besteden and remove the -en, you get the stem besteed, which ends in a 'd'. Because 'd' is not one of the consonants in 't kofschip (the memory rule for past participle endings), it gets a 'd' ending.
Could I use a different verb for "spending" money here?
Yes! A very common alternative for spending money is the separable verb uitgeven. If you used that here, the sentence would be: Wij hebben veel geld uitgegeven. Note that besteden can be used for spending both money and time (tijd besteden), while uitgeven is almost exclusively for money.
Why is besteed at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch sentences using the present perfect tense (a completed action using "have" or "be"), the helping verb (hebben) takes the second position in the sentence. The past participle (besteed) is always pushed all the way to the very end.
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