Breakdown of We zijn allemaal trots op hun prestatie.
zijn
to be
op
on
hun
their
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
trots
proud
allemaal
all (of them)
de prestatie
the achievement / the performance
trots zijn op
to be proud of
Questions & Answers about We zijn allemaal trots op hun prestatie.
Why do we use allemaal here instead of alle?
Allemaal is used here to refer back to the pronoun we. When you want to say "we all" or "they all" in Dutch, you use the subject pronoun + verb + allemaal (literally: "we are all"). You only use alle when it is attached directly in front of a noun, like alle mensen (all people).
Could I start the sentence with allemaal to mean "All of us"?
No, you cannot say Allemaal we zijn... in Dutch. Allemaal usually comes after the main verb. The correct and natural way to express "we all" as the subject is to start with the pronoun, followed by the verb and then the distributive pronoun: We zijn allemaal....
The English translation says "proud of," but the Dutch sentence uses op. Why?
This is a fixed preposition. In Dutch, the adjective trots (proud) always takes the preposition op. Even though English uses "of," you just have to memorize the combination trots zijn op.
I sometimes mix up hen, hun, and zij. Why is it hun in this sentence?
In this sentence, hun is the possessive pronoun meaning "their" because it tells us whose achievement it is (hun prestatie). You would use zij or ze for the subject ("they") and hen or ze when it is the object ("them").
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