Breakdown of Gisteren zijn we met de familie wezen picknicken.
zijn
to be
met
with
de familie
the family
gisteren
yesterday
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
wezen
to go (auxiliary for past outings)
picknicken
to picnic
Questions & Answers about Gisteren zijn we met de familie wezen picknicken.
Why use zijn ... wezen picknicken instead of just hebben gepicknickt?
Using zijn + wezen + an infinitive specifically means you went out and did an activity, and the outing is now finished. While we hebben gepicknickt simply states the fact that you picnicked, we zijn wezen picknicken emphasizes the trip itself, translating perfectly to "we went picnicking."
Why don't we use the regular past participle geweest instead of wezen?
Wezen is an old infinitive form of zijn. In Dutch, when a perfect tense stacks an action verb with a helping verb at the end of a sentence, the past participle turns into an infinitive. So instead of the incorrect phrase geweest picknicken, we use the double infinitive wezen picknicken.
Why does the sentence say zijn we instead of we zijn?
Why is the verb zijn separated from wezen picknicken by the rest of the sentence?
In a standard Dutch main clause, the conjugated verb (here, zijn) always takes the second position. Any other verbs, such as the infinitives wezen and picknicken, are pushed all the way to the very end of the sentence, wrapping around phrases like met de familie.
Is the English loanword picknicken treated like a normal Dutch verb?
Yes! It has been fully adopted into Dutch and follows regular conjugation rules. It appears here in its full infinitive form, but if you used it in a standard perfect tense without wezen, it would take a normal Dutch prefix and suffix: wij hebben gepicknickt.
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