Word
Het was de uitvinder die de wetenschap wilde veranderen.
Meaning
It was the inventor who wanted to change science.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Het was de uitvinder die de wetenschap wilde veranderen.
zijn
to be
willen
to want
het
it
veranderen
to change
Questions & Answers about Het was de uitvinder die de wetenschap wilde veranderen.
Why do we use die for "who" here instead of wie?
In Dutch cleft sentences like "It was X who...", you just use standard relative pronouns to refer back to the person or thing. Because uitvinder (inventor) is a de-word, we use die. You should avoid using wie as a subject relative pronoun in Dutch; die is used for both people and things as long as they are de-words.
Why are the verbs wilde veranderen grouped at the very end of the sentence?
The second half of this cleft sentence (die de wetenschap wilde veranderen) acts as a subclause. In Dutch subclauses, all verbs get pushed to the end of the sentence. Here, the conjugated past tense modal verb wilde (wanted) and the infinitive veranderen (to change) cluster together at the very end.
The English translation just says "science", so why does the Dutch sentence use de wetenschap?
In English, we usually drop the article for abstract concepts or broad fields of study like science, history, or nature. In Dutch, it is much more common to keep the definite article (de or het) for these words. So, general "science" becomes de wetenschap.
Could I use wou instead of wilde here?