Breakdown of In plaats van het nieuws te checken, was hij offline.
zijn
to be
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
het nieuws
the news
te
to (infinitive marker)
checken
to check (informal)
in plaats van
instead of
offline
offline
Questions & Answers about In plaats van het nieuws te checken, was hij offline.
Why do we use te checken here instead of an "-ing" word like in English?
English uses "-ing" words after prepositions, like "instead of checking". Dutch doesn't have an exact "-ing" equivalent. Instead, phrases starting with in plaats van (instead of), zonder (without), and door (by) are followed by the rest of the clause, ending with te + the full infinitive verb (checken).
Why does the second half of the sentence say was hij instead of hij was?
This happens because of the V2 (verb-second) rule. The entire introductory phrase (In plaats van het nieuws te checken) acts as the first block of information in the sentence. The main verb (was) must sit in the second position, which forces the subject (hij) to move immediately after it.
If I wanted to add more information, like "checking the news on his phone", where would te checken go?
The te + infinitive combination almost always gets pushed to the very end of its specific clause. If you added "on his phone" (op zijn telefoon), it would go before the verb: In plaats van het nieuws op zijn telefoon te checken, was hij offline.
Is checken just the English word "check"?
Yes! Dutch adopts many English verbs and fits them into regular Dutch grammar rules. Here, the English root "check" gets the standard Dutch infinitive ending -en to become checken. If you were to conjugate it, it would follow normal Dutch patterns (like hij checkt for "he checks").
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