Word
Vorige zomer zijn we wezen duiken en surfen.
Meaning
Last summer we went diving and surfing.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Vorige zomer zijn we wezen duiken en surfen.
zijn
to be
en
and
vorig
previous / last
de zomer
the summer
Questions & Answers about Vorige zomer zijn we wezen duiken en surfen.
Why do we use wezen here instead of gegaan or geweest?
In Dutch, when you talk about a completed past activity that you "went" to do, you use zijn + wezen + the bare infinitive of the action (like duiken). It acts as the perfect tense of doing an activity, replacing the standard past participle gegaan (gone) or geweest (been).
Why does the sentence use zijn instead of hebben?
The verb wezen (to be) always uses zijn as its helper verb in the perfect tense. So, while in English you might think of "we went" or "we have gone", the literal Dutch grammar is closer to "we are been diving".
Does wezen apply to both duiken and surfen?
Yes! When you have a list of activities connected by en (and), you only need to use wezen once. It acts as the helper for both actions, and all the action verbs get pushed to the end of the sentence as bare infinitives.