Breakdown of De roddel mag niet door de echtgenoot gehoord worden.
niet
not
mogen
to be allowed to / may
horen
to hear
worden
to become
door
by (agent in a passive sentence)
de roddel
the gossip
de echtgenoot
the husband/spouse
Questions & Answers about De roddel mag niet door de echtgenoot gehoord worden.
Why does the translation use "must not" for mag niet? Wouldn't moet niet make more sense?
In Dutch, a strict prohibition (like English "must not") is translated using mag niet (literally "is not allowed"). If you use moet niet, it generally sounds more like a strong piece of advice ("should not"). And as a reminder, if you want to say that something "doesn't have to" happen, you use hoeft niet.
Why are there two verbs, gehoord and worden, at the end of the sentence?
This sentence is in the passive voice (the gossip is "being heard"). Because the modal verb mag takes the second position in the sentence, the rest of the verbs are pushed to the end. Those are the past participle gehoord (heard) and the infinitive worden (to be).
Is door always the word used for "by" in a passive sentence?
Yes! When you want to specify who performs the action in a passive Dutch sentence, you always use the preposition door. So "heard by the husband" becomes gehoord door de echtgenoot.
This lesson is about van wie (whose). How would I add a phrase like "whose secret it is" to describe the husband here?
You would place the relative clause starting with van wie directly after the person it describes. For example: De roddel mag niet door de echtgenoot, van wie dit geheim is, gehoord worden. Because that splits the sentence up quite a bit, Dutch speakers will often move the door phrase to the very end for a smoother flow: De roddel mag niet gehoord worden door de echtgenoot van wie dit geheim is.
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