Breakdown of Ik wil nergens op stemmen tijdens deze verkiezing.
ik
I
op
on
willen
to want
deze
this / these
nergens
nowhere / not anywhere
tijdens
during
stemmen
to vote
de verkiezing
the election
Questions & Answers about Ik wil nergens op stemmen tijdens deze verkiezing.
Why does this sentence use nergens op instead of op niets?
In Dutch, you cannot usually put a preposition directly before niets (nothing) when referring to things. Instead, they combine and change into a pronominal adverb: nergens + preposition. Because the verb in this sentence requires the preposition op, it becomes nergens op.
The translation says 'vote for', so why does the Dutch sentence use op instead of voor?
Many verbs have fixed prepositions that do not match their English equivalents. In Dutch, the phrase is stemmen op (literally 'to vote on'). So to say you are voting for someone or something, you must use op.
Why is the verb stemmen not at the very end of the sentence?
The helper verb wil pushes the main verb (stemmen) to the end of the core sentence. However, extra information like prepositional phrases (such as tijdens deze verkiezing) can legally sit after the infinitive in Dutch. You could also say Ik wil tijdens deze verkiezing nergens op stemmen, but leaving the time phrase for the very end is very common and sounds natural.
Why do we use deze here instead of dit?
The word for election is a de-word (de verkiezing). When pointing out something specific with the word 'this', you use deze for de-words and dit for het-words.
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