Breakdown of Nu schildert hij een stromende rivier op het grote doek.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
een
a/an
groot
big
nu
now
op
on
schilderen
to paint
de rivier
the river
stromen
to flow
het doek
the canvas
Questions & Answers about Nu schildert hij een stromende rivier op het grote doek.
Why does stromende have an -e at the end?
Stromende comes from the present participle stromend (flowing), which is formed by adding -d to the infinitive stromen. When you use a present participle as an adjective in front of a noun (like rivier here), it gets an extra -e ending, following the exact same rules as regular adjectives.
Why is the word order schildert hij instead of hij schildert?
Because the sentence starts with the time word Nu (now). In Dutch, whenever you put something other than the subject at the beginning of a main clause, the verb stays in the second position and the subject is pushed to the third position. This swapping of the subject and verb is called inversion.
The English translation says "he is painting," but schildert is just the simple present tense. Why not use a continuous form?
Dutch doesn't use the continuous form nearly as often as English does. While you could technically say hij is aan het schilderen, the simple present hij schildert is perfectly natural to mean "he is painting." The word Nu already makes it perfectly clear that the action is happening right now.
Why is it het grote doek but we would say een groot doek?
Doek (canvas) is a neuter noun, also known as a het word. When a neuter noun is preceded by a definite article like het, any adjective before it gets an -e ending. If it were preceded by the indefinite article een, the adjective would drop the -e.
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