Breakdown of Tijdens de reis zagen we giftige slangen. Wat enorme dieren!
zien
to see
wat
what
het dier
the animal
de reis
the journey / the trip
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
tijdens
during
enorm
enormous
giftig
poisonous
de slang
the snake
Questions & Answers about Tijdens de reis zagen we giftige slangen. Wat enorme dieren!
Why is it Wat enorme dieren instead of Wat een enorme dieren?
Because dieren (animals) is a plural noun. In Dutch, you use wat een for singular countable nouns, like wat een dier (what an animal). For plural nouns, uncountable nouns, and standalone adjectives, you drop the een and just use wat.
Why is the word order zagen we rather than we zagen?
This is because of inversion. The sentence starts with the prepositional phrase Tijdens de reis (During the trip). In Dutch, whenever you start a sentence with something other than the subject, the verb and subject swap places. So we zagen becomes zagen we.
Why do the adjectives giftig and enorm both get an -e at the end?
Adjectives that come directly before a noun almost always get an -e ending. The main exception is when the noun is a singular het-word used with an indefinite article (like een) or no article. Since slangen and dieren are both plural nouns, their adjectives automatically get the -e ending.
What is the dictionary form of zagen?
Here, zagen is the plural past tense of zien (to see). Be careful if you look it up in a dictionary: as a standalone verb, zagen also means 'to saw' (cutting wood), but in this sentence it is simply the past tense of seeing the snakes!
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