Word
Wij waren de nieuwe camera aan het testen.
Meaning
We were testing the new camera.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Wij waren de nieuwe camera aan het testen.
zijn
to be
wij
we
nieuw
new
aan
on / at (attached to, edge)
Questions & Answers about Wij waren de nieuwe camera aan het testen.
How does the past continuous work in this sentence?
Why does de nieuwe camera go in the middle of the sentence?
In Dutch, the continuous part (aan het testen) gets pushed to the very end of the clause. The object (de nieuwe camera) must come between the conjugated verb (waren) and the aan het block. You cannot say "Wij waren aan het testen de nieuwe camera" like you would in English.
Why is it nieuwe instead of just nieuw?
Because camera is a de word (de camera). When an adjective comes directly before a noun that uses de, you add an -e to the end of the adjective.
Could I use we instead of wij here?
Yes. We is the normal, unstressed word for "we". Using wij puts special emphasis on the people doing the action: we were testing it, perhaps as opposed to someone else.