Breakdown of Ik ben het voorstel aan het uitwerken en de administratie aan het ordenen.
ik
I
zijn
to be
en
and
het voorstel
the proposal
uitwerken
to develop / to work out (a plan, idea)
ordenen
to organize / to sort (put in order)
de administratie
the administration / the records
Questions & Answers about Ik ben het voorstel aan het uitwerken en de administratie aan het ordenen.
Why are het voorstel and de administratie placed before aan het?
In Dutch, the direct object is placed before the aan het continuous structure. This creates a verb bracket: the helping verb ben opens the bracket, and aan het plus the infinitive closes it. The object goes between them, so we literally say that we are [the proposal] at the working out.
The verb uitwerken is separable. Why is it written as one word here?
Because the aan het continuous form always requires the full infinitive of the main verb. Even though uitwerken is a separable verb, it stays glued together as a single word when it acts as an infinitive at the very end of a clause.
Why isn't there another ben after the word en?
You can leave out the subject and the helping verb in the second part of the sentence if they are exactly the same as the first part. The sentence is actually short for Ik ben het voorstel aan het uitwerken en ik ben de administratie aan het ordenen. We drop the second ik ben to sound more natural, just like in English!
Does de administratie mean administration like a group of managers?
It can, but in everyday Dutch, de administratie usually refers to a person's or company's paperwork, filing, records, or bookkeeping. Here, the speaker is organizing their paperwork.
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