Word
Ondanks dat het vriest, bevriezen we niet.
Meaning
Even though it is freezing, we do not freeze.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Ondanks dat het vriest, bevriezen we niet.
niet
not
het
it
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
vriezen
to freeze
Questions & Answers about Ondanks dat het vriest, bevriezen we niet.
Why do we need to add dat after ondanks here?
Ondanks by itself is a preposition meaning "despite" and can only be placed in front of a noun phrase, such as ondanks de kou (despite the cold). Because het vriest is a full clause with its own subject and verb, you must use the conjunction ondanks dat (despite the fact that / even though).
How does ondanks dat affect the word order of the first clause?
Because ondanks dat is a subordinating conjunction, it creates a dependent clause where all verbs are pushed to the end. In this sentence, the clause is extremely short, so the verb vriest simply lands right after the subject het.
Why does the second part say bevriezen we instead of we bevriezen?
This happens because of the Dutch verb-second rule. The entire first clause (Ondanks dat het vriest) acts as the first block of information in the sentence. To keep the main verb in the second position, the verb bevriezen must come right after the comma, swapping places with the subject we.
Why does the sentence use two different words, vriest and bevriezen, for "freeze"?