Breakdown of Hij is wezen duiken, maar hij vond het gevaarlijk.
zijn
to be
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
maar
but
het
it
gevaarlijk
dangerous
vinden
to think / consider (hold an opinion)
wezen
to go (auxiliary for past outings)
duiken
to dive
Questions & Answers about Hij is wezen duiken, maar hij vond het gevaarlijk.
What exactly does is wezen duiken mean compared to just saying he dived?
Why is it wezen duiken without any ge- prefix? Shouldn't a perfect tense have a past participle?
Normally, yes! But when a perfect tense involves two verbs at the end, Dutch swaps the expected past participle for a bare infinitive. So instead of geweest duiken, you use the double infinitive wezen duiken.
Why does the second part say vond het instead of a word for 'thought'?
When expressing a personal opinion or feeling about an experience, Dutch almost always uses vinden (to find). While in English you might say 'he thought it was dangerous', a Dutch speaker naturally says hij vond het gevaarlijk.
Does the word maar affect the word order in the second half of the sentence?
No, it does not. The word maar (but) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it just glues two independent sentences together. The second half keeps the standard main clause word order: subject (hij), verb (vond), and the rest (het gevaarlijk).
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