Word
Hij wil de wildernis overleven.
Meaning
He wants to survive the wilderness.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Hij wil de wildernis overleven.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
willen
to want
de wildernis
the wilderness
overleven
to survive
Questions & Answers about Hij wil de wildernis overleven.
How would I add a clause with ondanks dat to this sentence, for example 'despite the fact that it is dangerous'?
Ondanks dat is a subordinating conjunction, which means it pushes the verb to the end of its own clause. If you add it to the end of this sentence, it looks like this: Hij wil de wildernis overleven, ondanks dat het gevaarlijk is. If you put it at the very beginning, it triggers inversion in the main sentence: Ondanks dat het gevaarlijk is, wil hij de wildernis overleven.
The verb overleven starts with over-. Is it a separable verb?
No, overleven (to survive) is inseparable. A good trick to remember this is the pronunciation: the stress falls on -le- (overLEven), not on the prefix. Because it's inseparable, it stays together in the present tense, and its past participle doesn't get a -ge- added to it (it's overleefd, not overgeleefd).
Why is it hij wil and not hij wilt? Doesn't the hij form usually get a -t?
You are right that the third-person singular (he/she/it) almost always gets a -t in Dutch (like hij loopt). However, willen is an irregular modal verb. The standard, correct form for hij, zij, and het is simply wil. You might occasionally hear native speakers say hij wilt in casual speech, but hij wil is the grammatically correct written form.