Breakdown of De veiligheid van het personeel is erg belangrijk.
zijn
to be
erg
very / really
belangrijk
important
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
het personeel
the staff
de veiligheid
the safety
Questions & Answers about De veiligheid van het personeel is erg belangrijk.
How does the suffix -heid work in veiligheid?
Just like the English suffixes "-ty" or "-ness", -heid turns an adjective into a noun. Here, the adjective veilig (safe) becomes the noun veiligheid (safety). As a helpful rule, nouns ending in -heid are always de words.
Why is personeel treated as singular when "staff" can be plural in English?
In Dutch, personeel is strictly a singular, collective noun. You must always use singular verbs and pronouns with it, unlike in English where people sometimes say "the staff are". Note that it is also a het word: het personeel.
Could I say het personeels veiligheid instead of de veiligheid van het personeel?
That would sound very unnatural. While Dutch does use an 's for possession with names (like Mijkes boek), for regular nouns with articles it is much more common to use van (of). Structuring it as "the safety of the staff" is the most natural phrasing.
Could I use heel instead of erg before belangrijk?
Yes! Both erg and heel mean "very" when used before an adjective like belangrijk (important). They are completely interchangeable in this context, so heel belangrijk and erg belangrijk mean the exact same thing.
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