Breakdown of Hij weigert bloemen te kopen, dus ik pluk er drie mooie.
ik
I
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
kopen
to buy
drie
three
de bloem
flower
mooi
beautiful
dus
so, therefore
te
to (infinitive marker)
weigeren
to refuse
er
of them (with a number or quantity)
plukken
to pick
Questions & Answers about Hij weigert bloemen te kopen, dus ik pluk er drie mooie.
What is er doing in the second half of the sentence?
Here, er acts as a quantitative pronoun meaning "of them". In Dutch, when you state a quantity of something previously mentioned (like bloemen) without repeating the noun itself, you must include er. So ik pluk er drie literally means "I pick three of them".
Why is there an -e at the end of mooie?
In English, you say "beautiful ones" to avoid repeating the noun, but Dutch uses the adjective on its own. Because mooie refers back to the plural noun bloemen, it keeps the same -e ending it would have if the noun were actually written there (drie mooie bloemen).
Why does the sentence use te kopen instead of just kopen?
The verb weigeren (to refuse) requires the word te before the infinitive of the following verb. It works exactly like English: "he refuses to buy", rather than "he refuses buy".
Why isn't the word order inverted after dus? Shouldn't it be dus pluk ik?
dus (so) is a coordinating conjunction. It links two main clauses together but doesn't count as the first position of the new clause. Because of this, the normal subject-verb order (ik pluk) is used, just like after en (and) or maar (but).
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