Word
De jonge regisseur was de scène aan het filmen.
Meaning
The young director was filming the scene.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De jonge regisseur was de scène aan het filmen.
zijn
to be
jong
young
aan
on / at (attached to, edge)
de regisseur
the director
Questions & Answers about De jonge regisseur was de scène aan het filmen.
Why are was and aan het filmen separated by de scène?
In Dutch, the continuous construction splits up. The conjugated verb (was) stays in the normal second position in the sentence, but the aan het + infinitive part (aan het filmen) gets pushed to the very end. Any objects, like de scène, must go in between.
Could I say De jonge regisseur filmde de scène instead? What is the difference?
Yes, you can! Filmde is the simple past tense, meaning the director filmed the scene. Using was ... aan het filmen specifically emphasizes that the action was ongoing at that moment in the past, just like the continuous tense in English.
Why is it jonge with an -e instead of just jong?
Because regisseur is a de word. When an adjective comes right before a noun and follows de, het, or a word like mijn, you almost always add an -e to the adjective.
Why does scène have an accent mark?
It is a borrowed word from French. The grave accent (è) shows you that the vowel is pronounced like the short English e in pet or set, instead of a long Dutch e.