Word
De resultaten zijn merkbaar beter dan vorig jaar.
Meaning
The results are noticeably better than last year.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of De resultaten zijn merkbaar beter dan vorig jaar.
zijn
to be
het jaar
the year
het resultaat
the result
vorig
previous / last
Questions & Answers about De resultaten zijn merkbaar beter dan vorig jaar.
The current lesson is about sinds (since). Could I say sinds vorig jaar here instead?
You could, but it changes the meaning! Dan means "than" and is used here for a comparison (beter dan means "better than"). If you said beter sinds vorig jaar, it would mean the results have been in a better state since last year, rather than comparing this year directly to last year.
How is the word merkbaar formed?
It comes from the verb merken (to notice). The suffix -baar works exactly like the English suffix "-able". So merkbaar translates to "noticeable" or, as used in this sentence, "noticeably".
Why doesn't merkbaar get an -e at the end?
In this sentence, merkbaar is an adverb because it modifies the adjective beter (it tells us how much better). In Dutch, adverbs never get an -e ending. If it were describing a noun directly, it would get an ending (for example: een merkbare verbetering).
Why is it vorig jaar and not vorige jaar?
Jaar is a het-word (het jaar). In Dutch, fixed time expressions like "last year" (vorig jaar) and "next year" (volgend jaar) behave as if they have an indefinite article, so the adjective before the het-word drops the -e ending.