Breakdown of Waarmee boren jullie dat gat zelf?
jullie
you (plural)
dat
that (het-words)
het gat
the hole
zelf
yourself / oneself (emphatic)
waarmee
with what
boren
to drill
Questions & Answers about Waarmee boren jullie dat gat zelf?
Why does this sentence use zelf instead of alleen?
Zelf is an emphatic pronoun that emphasizes who is doing the action. Here, it means "yourselves" — you are drilling the hole personally, rather than having someone else do it. If we used alleen, the sentence would mean "What are you drilling that hole with alone?" (meaning without anyone else in the room).
Why does the sentence start with waarmee instead of met wat?
In Dutch, you generally cannot combine a preposition (like met, meaning "with") with the question word wat. Instead, wat turns into waar, and it attaches to the front of the preposition. So, "with what" becomes the pronominal adverb waarmee.
Why is zelf placed at the very end of the sentence?
Emphatic zelf usually comes after the specific object or details in the middle of the sentence. By placing it at the end here, it wraps up the clause and strongly modifies the subject jullie to mean "you yourselves".
Why is it dat gat and not die gat?
The word for "hole" is a neuter noun: het gat. When pointing out a specific het word, you must use dat (that) or dit (this). You only use die and deze for de words or for plurals.
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