Breakdown of Als je goed eet, zul je snel vooruitgaan met je training.
eten
to eat
snel
fast
met
with
goed
good
zullen
shall / will
de training
the training / the practice
je
your (unstressed)
als
if / when (condition)
vooruitgaan
to progress
Questions & Answers about Als je goed eet, zul je snel vooruitgaan met je training.
Why is the word order zul je instead of je zult in the second part?
Because the sentence starts with the subordinate clause Als je goed eet (If you eat well). In Dutch, this entire clause occupies the first position. To satisfy the rule that the conjugated verb comes second (the V2 rule), the main clause must immediately start with its verb, resulting in zul je.
Why is it zul je and not zult je?
When the subject je or jij comes immediately after the verb, the verb drops the -t ending. You have likely seen this earlier with heb je or ga je, and it applies to the future tense auxiliary zullen as well.
Vooruitgaan (to progress) is a separable verb. Why is it written as one word here?
Separable verbs only split when they act as the conjugated verb in the sentence. Here, zul is the conjugated verb, which forces vooruitgaan to remain in its full infinitive form at the end of the clause.
How does als (if) differ grammatically from the focus of our current lesson, ondanks (despite)?
Als is a conjunction that introduces a full subordinate clause, meaning it needs a subject and a verb (which gets pushed to the end). Ondanks is a preposition, so it is followed by a noun phrase rather than a full clause. For example, you can say ondanks je training (despite your training), but you cannot say ondanks je goed eet.
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