Word
Ik heb me omgedraaid om te kijken.
Meaning
I turned around to look.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Ik heb me omgedraaid om te kijken.
ik
I
hebben
to have
kijken
to watch
te
to (infinitive marker)
Questions & Answers about Ik heb me omgedraaid om te kijken.
Why do we use heb here instead of ben? Isn't turning around a movement?
Even though turning involves movement, all reflexive verbs in Dutch use the helper verb hebben in the present perfect tense. Because the verb is zich omdraaien (to turn oneself around), you must say Ik heb me omgedraaid, never Ik ben me omgedraaid.
Why is the past participle omgedraaid instead of geomdraaid?
Omdraaien is a separable verb made of om and draaien. When you form the past participle of a separable verb, the ge goes right in the middle, between the prefix and the main verb. That gives us omgedraaid.
Why is the word om in this sentence twice?
They belong to two completely different grammar rules! The first om is the prefix attached to the past participle omgedraaid. The second om is part of the phrase om te kijken, which is a fixed structure meaning "in order to look".
Could I put me later in the sentence, like after omgedraaid?
No, the reflexive pronoun me needs to stay right after the conjugated verb, which in this case is heb. The past participle omgedraaid is pushed to the end of that part of the clause.