Breakdown of In deze vitrine staan kleine modellen van historische schepen.
klein
small
in
in
deze
this / these
staan
to stand
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
het model
the model
historisch
historical
de vitrine
the display case
het schip
the ship
Questions & Answers about In deze vitrine staan kleine modellen van historische schepen.
The singular is schip, so why is the plural schepen instead of "schippen"?
Schip is one of a special group of Dutch nouns that completely changes its vowel sound in the plural. Instead of just doubling the consonant to keep the short "i" sound, the vowel shifts to a long "e" sound. Other common examples of this type of irregular vowel change are stad / steden (city / cities) and lid / leden (member / members).
Why does the sentence use staan (to stand) instead of zijn (to be) for the models?
In Dutch, we strongly prefer to use specific verbs like staan (to stand), liggen (to lie), or zitten (to sit) to describe where something is located, rather than just using zijn. Because ship models have a base and rest upright in a display case, they "stand" (staan).
Why is there a double l in modellen?
The singular is model, which ends with a short "e" sound followed by a single consonant. When we add the plural ending -en, we have to double the l to lock in that short vowel sound. If we wrote "modelen", the rules of Dutch spelling would force the second "e" to be pronounced as a long vowel.
Why do kleine and historische both get an -e at the end?
In Dutch, an adjective almost always gets an -e ending when placed directly in front of a noun. The only major exception is when describing a singular het-word that has een (or no article at all) in front of it. Because both modellen and schepen are plural, their adjectives automatically take the -e ending.
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