Breakdown of De parkeerplaats naast het buurthuis is best duur.
zijn
to be
duur
expensive
naast
next to
best
quite / pretty (degree adverb)
het buurthuis
the community center
de parkeerplaats
the parking lot
Questions & Answers about De parkeerplaats naast het buurthuis is best duur.
Doesn't best usually mean the same thing as in English? Why does it mean 'pretty' here?
It can mean 'best' (the superlative of goed), but in this sentence, it is used as an adverb of degree right before the adjective duur. In this structure, best means 'pretty', 'quite', or 'rather'. It is a very common way to soften a statement or express a mild realization in spoken Dutch.
Why is the verb is placed so late in the sentence? I thought Dutch verbs had to be in the second position.
The verb is actually is in the second position! The entire phrase De parkeerplaats naast het buurthuis (The parking lot next to the community center) counts as the first position because it is a single block of information acting as the subject. In Dutch main clauses, the verb is always the second grammatical block, no matter how many words make up the first block.
Why does buurthuis take the article het instead of de?
How do we know to use parkeer instead of the full verb parkeren in the word parkeerplaats?
When making a compound word out of a verb and a noun, Dutch generally uses the stem of the verb. The stem of parkeren (to park) is parkeer, so you attach that directly to the noun plaats (place or spot) to make parkeerplaats.
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