Word
Ik ben bang voor de spin en het insect.
Meaning
I am afraid of the spider and the insect.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Ik ben bang voor de spin en het insect.
Why does the Dutch sentence use voor when the English translation says "afraid of"?
In Dutch, certain adjectives are always followed by a specific "fixed" preposition, regardless of what makes sense in English. The adjective bang (afraid) always pairs with voor (literally "for"). So to say you are afraid of something, you must always use bang voor rather than trying to translate the word "of".
If I wanted to say I'm afraid of spiders and insects in general, how would this sentence change?
You would drop the definite articles (de and het) and use the plural forms of the nouns, just like in English. It would become Ik ben bang voor spinnen en insecten. Notice that the fixed preposition phrase bang voor works the exact same way with plurals.
Why is it de spin but het insect?
This is a quick reminder that Dutch nouns are divided into two grammatical categories: common words get de and neuter words get het. Even though they belong to the same logical category (creepy crawlies), they have different grammatical genders. You just have to memorize that it is de spin and het insect.
Can I put the things I'm afraid of at the beginning of the sentence for emphasis?