Word
We hadden de kans, dus we hadden moeten doorzetten.
Meaning
We had the chance, so we should have persevered.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of We hadden de kans, dus we hadden moeten doorzetten.
hebben
to have
moeten
to have to, must
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
dus
so, therefore
Questions & Answers about We hadden de kans, dus we hadden moeten doorzetten.
Why is the infinitive moeten used here instead of the past participle gemoeten?
This is the IPP rule (Infinitive for Participle). When a modal verb like moeten is used in the perfect tense alongside another infinitive (doorzetten), it drops its past participle form and turns back into an infinitive. This is often called the "double infinitive" rule.
How does hadden moeten mean "should have"?
To express something you "should have" done in the past but didn't, Dutch uses the past perfect tense of moeten. Literally, we hadden moeten doorzetten translates to "we had must persevere," which is how Dutch expresses an unfulfilled past obligation.
Why doesn't dus push the verb to the end of the sentence?
The word dus (so) usually acts as a coordinating conjunction here, just like en (and) or maar (but). It connects two main clauses, so the second clause keeps the normal Subject-Verb word order (we hadden).
Doorzetten is a separable verb. Why doesn't it split up here?
Separable verbs only split when they are the main conjugated verb in the present or simple past tense. Because doorzetten is used here as an infinitive at the end of the sentence, it stays whole as a single word.