Breakdown of De vorige ronde was moeilijk, maar ik ken deze categorie goed.
ik
I
zijn
to be
maar
but
kennen
to know
Questions & Answers about De vorige ronde was moeilijk, maar ik ken deze categorie goed.
Why do we use ken here instead of weet?
The verb kennen means to be familiar with a person, place, or thing. Because you are talking about knowing a specific noun (deze categorie), you must use kennen. You would use weten if you were stating a fact, usually followed by a sub-clause (like 'I know that the round is hard').
Why is an -e added to vorig to make it vorige ronde?
ronde is a de-word. When an adjective describes a noun and follows the word de, it always gets an -e at the end. The adjective would only drop the -e if it were describing a het-word preceded by een or nothing at all.
Why doesn't the word maar change the word order in the second half of the sentence?
The word maar (but) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it simply connects two independent main clauses. Words like maar, en (and), and want (for) do not affect the word order. That is why the second half keeps the standard subject-verb order (ik ken).
How do we know to use deze instead of dit for 'this category'?