Word
De baas beloofde dat hij mij zou helpen.
Meaning
The boss promised that he would help me.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De baas beloofde dat hij mij zou helpen.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
helpen
to help
de baas
the boss
zullen
shall / will
Questions & Answers about De baas beloofde dat hij mij zou helpen.
Why is zou used here instead of zal?
Zou is the past tense of zullen (will). Because the main action beloofde (promised) happened in the past, the future action it refers to must also shift to the past. Just like in English where you say "promised that he would help" instead of "will help", Dutch uses zou to express this "future in the past."
Why do zou and helpen both go at the very end of the sentence?
The word dat (that) introduces a subclause. A major rule in Dutch is that subclauses push all of their verbs to the end. Therefore, both the auxiliary verb (zou) and the infinitive (helpen) are stacked together at the end of the sentence.
Could I switch the order at the end and say dat hij mij helpen zou?
Yes, absolutely! At the end of a subclause, when you have a conjugated auxiliary verb (zou) and an infinitive (helpen), you can put them in either order. Both zou helpen and helpen zou are perfectly correct, though zou helpen is slightly more common in everyday speech.
Why does the sentence use mij instead of me?