Word
Hij loopt de baby's te troosten, nu ze huilen.
Meaning
He is walking around comforting the babies, now that they are crying.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hij loopt de baby's te troosten, nu ze huilen.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
lopen
to walk
huilen
to cry
ze
they; she (unstressed form of zij) / them (object)
Questions & Answers about Hij loopt de baby's te troosten, nu ze huilen.
Why does nu translate to "now that" here instead of just "now"?
When nu is used to connect two clauses (as a conjunction), it takes on the meaning of "now that", introducing a circumstance. If it were just the adverb "now" (as in "He is crying now"), it wouldn't link a new subject and verb.
The lesson says nu forces the verb to the end, but ze huilen looks like normal subject-verb order. Where is the verb-final order?
The rule is still working! The subclause is just very short. The verb huilen is indeed at the end of the clause. Because the clause only has a subject (ze) and a verb (huilen), the verb-final order happens to look exactly like a normal main clause. If you added a word, you'd see the verb get pushed to the end: ..., nu ze zo hard huilen (now that they are crying so loudly).
What grammar structure is loopt te troosten?
This is a common way Dutch expresses continuous action (that something is happening right now). It uses a posture or movement verb (zitten, staan, liggen, or lopen) + te + an infinitive verb. Literally "walks to comfort", it means he is actively comforting them while walking around.
Why does baby's have an apostrophe for a plural?
In Dutch, if a noun ends in a single open vowel (like -a, -i, -o, -u, or -y), you must use an apostrophe before the plural s. This prevents the pronunciation from changing. English speakers are taught never to use apostrophes for plurals, but in Dutch it is required here so the 'y' doesn't turn into a short vowel sound.