Breakdown of Deze kandidaat praat over de politiek, maar hij is overal tegen.
zijn
to be
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
maar
but
praten
to talk
Questions & Answers about Deze kandidaat praat over de politiek, maar hij is overal tegen.
Why does the Dutch sentence use overal tegen instead of 'tegen alles' for 'against everything'?
In Dutch, when you combine a preposition like tegen (against) with alles (everything), it changes into a pronominal adverb. The word alles turns into overal, and it jumps in front of the preposition. So, 'against everything' becomes overal tegen (literally: 'everywhere against'). You cannot say 'tegen alles' in Dutch.
Can I put words between overal and tegen?
Yes! Just like other combinations (such as erover or daarmee), you can split overal tegen. For example, you could say: ...maar hij is overal heel erg tegen (but he is very much against everything). In our example sentence, there are no extra words to put between them, so they stay together at the end of the sentence.
Why is there a de before politiek? In English we just say 'politics'.
Dutch often uses the definite article (de or het) for abstract concepts or general fields of society and science, like de politiek (politics), de natuur (nature), or de liefde (love). In English, we usually leave the article out, but in Dutch it sounds much more natural to include it here.
Why doesn't the verb move to the end after maar?