Word
We hoeven er vandaag geen waardeloze spullen weg te doen.
Meaning
We don't need to get rid of any worthless stuff there today.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of We hoeven er vandaag geen waardeloze spullen weg te doen.
geen
no / not any
vandaag
today
er
there (in that place)
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
Questions & Answers about We hoeven er vandaag geen waardeloze spullen weg te doen.
Why is er placed right after hoeven and before vandaag?
This is a key rule for Dutch word order. The word er (here meaning "there") usually appears as early as possible in the middle of the sentence. It directly follows the finite verb (hoeven) and the subject (We). It naturally comes before time adverbs like vandaag and negative objects like geen waardeloze spullen.
Why does this sentence use hoeven when the English translation says "need to"?
In Dutch, you cannot use moeten (must / have to) to say you don't have to do something. Instead, you use the verb hoeven, which is always paired with te and a negative word (like niet or geen). Together, hoeven ... geen ... te means "do not need to" or "do not have to".
Why is the word te stuck in the middle of weg te doen?
The verb for "to get rid of" is wegdoen, which is a separable verb made of the prefix weg and the verb doen. Because hoeven requires te before the infinitive at the end of the sentence, that te splits the separable verb and is placed right in the middle. It is written as three separate words: weg te doen.
Why is it spelled instead of ?