Breakdown of Waarom drijft de slak in het water?
het water
the water
in
in
waarom
why
drijven
to float (on liquid / water)
de slak
the snail
Questions & Answers about Waarom drijft de slak in het water?
Does drijft mean "drives", like driving a car?
No, drijven is a false friend! It means "to float". If you want to talk about driving a vehicle, you would use the verb rijden (or autorijden). So the snail isn't driving in the water, it's floating.
Why is the verb drijft before the subject de slak?
Because this is an open question starting with the question word waarom (why). In Dutch main clauses, the conjugated verb loves the second position (the V2 rule). To keep drijft in position two right after waarom, the subject de slak has to swap places and move behind the verb. This swapping is called inversion.
If the verb is drijft, is the infinitive drijfen?
The infinitive is actually drijven (to float). In Dutch spelling rules, a syllable is never allowed to end in a 'v' or a 'z'. When we find the stem by dropping the -en from the infinitive, the 'v' hardens into an 'f' (drijf). Then, because de slak is a third-person singular subject (it), we add a -t to get drijft.
I see it's "het water". Are all liquids "het" words in Dutch?
Water is indeed a neuter (het) word, but there is no rule saying all liquids are neuter. While some other drinks take het (like het bier and het sap), many common liquids are de words (like de melk, de koffie, de thee, and de wijn). You simply have to memorize het water.
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