Breakdown of De sollicitant bleek zelfverzekerd en erg betrouwbaar te zijn.
zijn
to be
en
and
erg
very / really
te
to (infinitive marker)
de sollicitant
the applicant
zelfverzekerd
self-confident
betrouwbaar
reliable
blijken te
to turn out to
Questions & Answers about De sollicitant bleek zelfverzekerd en erg betrouwbaar te zijn.
Why is bleek used here instead of leek or scheen?
Bleek is the past tense of blijken (to turn out). You use blijken when there is concrete evidence or a final conclusion. If you used leek (from lijken), it would mean the applicant appeared confident at the time, but maybe was not. Scheen (from schijnen) would mean you heard from someone else that they were confident. Here, we know for a fact how they turned out!
Why do we need te zijn at the end of the sentence?
Verbs like blijken, lijken, and schijnen are often used with te + an infinitive to link them to a state or action. Here, bleek ... te zijn translates exactly to turned out ... to be. The verb bleek takes the second position in the sentence, pushing te zijn to the very end.
Could I drop te zijn and just say De sollicitant bleek zelfverzekerd en erg betrouwbaar?
Yes! With adjectives like zelfverzekerd and betrouwbaar, you can often leave out te zijn entirely. Both versions are correct and sound natural in Dutch.
Does erg mean bad or terrible? Why is it translated as very here?
Erg means terrible or bad when used as an adjective to describe a noun. However, when placed before another adjective like betrouwbaar, it acts as an adverb meaning very or really. You could also use heel here to mean the exact same thing.
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