Breakdown of Aangezien het horloge kapot is, zal ik het meteen terugsturen.
ik
I
zijn
to be
het horloge
the watch
het
it
zullen
shall / will
meteen
immediately
kapot
broken
aangezien
since / as (because)
terugsturen
to send back
Questions & Answers about Aangezien het horloge kapot is, zal ik het meteen terugsturen.
Why is it zal ik instead of ik zal after the comma?
The entire first clause (Aangezien het horloge kapot is) acts as the first "block" of information in the main sentence. Because the main verb must always take the second position in Dutch (the V2 rule), the verb zal comes right after the comma, and the subject ik has to immediately follow it. This is called inversion.
What does aangezien mean and how does it affect word order?
Aangezien means "since" or "seeing as". It is a subordinating conjunction, which means it introduces a dependent clause and pushes the verb in that clause (is) all the way to the end, right before the comma.
Could I just use omdat instead of aangezien here?
Yes, you can. Omdat (because) and aangezien share the exact same word order rules. Aangezien just sounds slightly more formal, similar to the difference between "since" and "because" in English.
Why doesn't the separable verb terugsturen split up into stuur ... terug?
In a simple present tense sentence without other verbs, it would split (Ik stuur het meteen terug). However, because this sentence uses the auxiliary verb zal (will), the main verb gets pushed to the very end of the sentence as a full, joined infinitive (terugsturen).
Why do we use the pronoun het for "it" rather than hem?
When referring back to a noun, the pronoun must match the noun's article. Because the word for watch is a neuter noun (het horloge), you must use het to say "it". If you were referring to a de word, you would use hem or haar.
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