Word
Hij consumeert noch vlees noch wijn.
Meaning
He consumes neither meat nor wine.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hij consumeert noch vlees noch wijn.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
het vlees
the meat
de wijn
the wine
noch
neither / nor
Questions & Answers about Hij consumeert noch vlees noch wijn.
How does the noch ... noch structure work here?
The phrase noch ... noch means "neither ... nor". Just like in English, you place the first noch directly before the first item (vlees) and the second noch directly before the second item (wijn).
Why don't we use geen (no) before the nouns since the sentence is negative?
The word noch carries a negative meaning all by itself. Because standard Dutch does not use double negatives, adding geen before vlees or wijn would be grammatically incorrect.
What happens to the word order if I start the sentence with noch vlees noch wijn?
When you start a Dutch sentence with anything other than the subject, you must invert the subject and the verb. The sentence would become: Noch vlees noch wijn consumeert hij.
Is consumeert commonly used in daily conversation?
Similar to "consumes" in English, consumeert is quite formal. In everyday spoken Dutch, people usually avoid the formal noch ... noch structure entirely and prefer to say something like: Hij eet geen vlees en drinkt geen wijn (He eats no meat and drinks no wine).