Breakdown of Dit is het absurdste wat ik vandaag heb gehoord.
ik
I
zijn
to be
hebben
to have
vandaag
today
dit
this (neuter)
horen
to hear
wat
that / which (relative)
absurd
absurd
Questions & Answers about Dit is het absurdste wat ik vandaag heb gehoord.
Why do we use wat instead of dat as the relative pronoun here?
Even though het absurdste takes a het article, we use wat instead of dat because it is a superlative. In Dutch, you always use wat (not dat) to refer back to neuter superlatives acting as nouns, like het leukste, het beste, or het absurdste.
Where is the word for "thing" in the Dutch sentence?
The word "thing" is built into the grammar. By placing the article het in front of the superlative adjective absurdste, it turns into a noun meaning "the most absurd thing". Adding a word like ding isn't necessary and would sound unnatural here.
Why does the superlative absurdst get an -e at the end?
When an adjective (or in this case, a superlative) is used independently as a noun with het or de, it gets an -e ending. So the base superlative absurdst becomes het absurdste.
Why are the verbs heb gehoord at the very end of the sentence?
The word wat introduces a relative clause. Relative clauses use subordinate word order, which pushes all verbs to the end of the clause. Note that you could also flip the final verbs and say gehoord heb; both orders are perfectly correct in Dutch!
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