Word
Wij zijn naar de stomerij gefietst.
Meaning
We cycled to the dry cleaner.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Wij zijn naar de stomerij gefietst.
Why does this sentence use zijn instead of hebben for the perfect tense of fietsen?
Because a specific destination is mentioned (naar de stomerij). When a verb of motion like fietsen (to cycle) is directed towards a goal, it takes zijn in the perfect tense to show the change of location from A to B.
What happens to the sentence if we drop the destination (naar de stomerij)?
If you just want to say "We cycled" without mentioning where you went, the auxiliary verb changes back to hebben. The sentence becomes Wij hebben gefietst, because the focus shifts to the activity itself rather than the journey to a goal.
Why is gefietst separated from zijn and placed at the very end?
This is a quick refresher on standard Dutch word order for the perfect tense. The auxiliary verb (zijn) stays in the second position of the sentence, while the past participle (gefietst) gets pushed to the very end, wrapping around the extra information like the destination.
How can I easily remember the word stomerij (dry cleaner)?
It is based on the Dutch verb stomen, which means "to steam". You can think of the stomerij as the "steamer-y" or the place where your formal clothes are steam-cleaned!