Breakdown of In plaats van de emotie te tonen, verbergt hij haar.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
haar
her
te
to (infinitive marker)
tonen
to show
verbergen
to hide (conceal)
in plaats van
instead of
de emotie
the emotion
Questions & Answers about In plaats van de emotie te tonen, verbergt hij haar.
How can you tell that emotie is a de word just by looking at it?
Words ending in the suffix -ie (like emotie, politie, situatie) are almost always de words. In Dutch, this specific suffix also indicates that the noun is grammatically feminine.
Why does the sentence end with haar (her) when the English translation says "it"?
Because emotie is a feminine noun (thanks to the -ie suffix), formal written Dutch refers back to it using the feminine pronoun haar. In casual everyday speech, you might hear people just use hem (him) or die (that/those) to say "it" for a de word.
How does the "instead of doing something" structure work here?
To say "instead of [verb]ing", Dutch uses in plaats van followed by the object or details, and ends with te plus the full infinitive verb. Here, that gives us in plaats van de emotie te tonen.
Why is the word order verbergt hij instead of hij verbergt?
This is because of inversion. The entire phrase In plaats van de emotie te tonen acts as the first element of the main sentence. In Dutch main clauses, the verb must always be in the second position, so verbergt comes right after the comma, and the subject hij is pushed to the third position.
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