Breakdown of De student zoekt de stilte om zich te concentreren.
de student
the student
zoeken
to look for
te
to (infinitive marker)
om
in order to
Questions & Answers about De student zoekt de stilte om zich te concentreren.
Why is zich in this sentence when English just says "to concentrate"?
In Dutch, "to concentrate" is a reflexive verb: zich concentreren. This means the action reflects back on the subject, so it always needs a reflexive pronoun (like myself, yourself, himself). Even though we don't say "to concentrate himself" in English, you must include the reflexive pronoun in Dutch.
Where exactly does the reflexive pronoun go in an om ... te (in order to) clause?
It usually goes immediately after om. The standard word order for this structure is om + [reflexive pronoun] + [any other words] + te + [infinitive verb]. That is why we get om zich te concentreren here.
How do we know to use zich here instead of another reflexive pronoun like me or je?
Even though the om ... te clause doesn't have an explicit subject inside it, the reflexive pronoun must match the subject of the main sentence. The subject here is De student (he or she), so the matching third-person reflexive pronoun is zich. If the sentence started with "I", it would be Ik zoek de stilte om me te concentreren.
Can I leave out om and just say ...de stilte zich te concentreren?