Breakdown of Wij hebben gisteren op een nieuwe partij gestemd.
een
a/an
wij
we
hebben
to have
op
on
nieuw
new
gisteren
yesterday
de partij
the party (political)
stemmen
to vote
Questions & Answers about Wij hebben gisteren op een nieuwe partij gestemd.
Why do we use op here instead of voor to say "voted for"?
In Dutch, the verb stemmen (to vote) is paired with the fixed preposition op when you talk about who or what receives your vote. You can think of it as "voting on" a party, even though in English we say "voting for".
How would I say "We voted for something yesterday" using the grammar from this lesson?
To say "voted for something", you use the indefinite pronominal adverb ergens op. The sentence becomes Wij hebben gisteren ergens op gestemd. Because stemmen requires the preposition op, you combine ergens (somewhere/something) and op instead of saying op iets.
Why is it een nieuwe partij with an -e on the adjective, instead of just nieuw?
Partij is a de-word (de partij). When an adjective comes before a de-word, it always gets an -e ending, even when it comes after the indefinite article een. You only drop the -e ending when you describe a het-word preceded by een.
Why is gestemd placed at the very end of the sentence?
This sentence uses the present perfect tense to talk about the past. In Dutch main clauses, the conjugated helper verb (hebben) takes the second position, and the past participle (gestemd) gets pushed all the way to the end, after the time (gisteren) and the prepositional phrase (op een nieuwe partij).
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