Breakdown of Hij bouwt het poppenhuis na, waarvan het sofaatje erg verfijnd is.
zijn
to be
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
erg
very / really
waarvan
whose / of which
het poppenhuis
the dollhouse
nabouwen
to recreate / to reproduce
verfijnd
delicate / refined
de sofa
the sofa
Questions & Answers about Hij bouwt het poppenhuis na, waarvan het sofaatje erg verfijnd is.
Why is it sofaatje with a double 'a' instead of sofatje?
The base word is sofa. In Dutch, a single vowel at the very end of a word is pronounced long. If we just added -tje to make it sofatje, the 'a' would suddenly look like a short vowel because it is followed by consonants. To keep the long 'a' sound in the diminutive form, we have to double the vowel, resulting in sofaatje.
Where does the word na come from in the first part of the sentence?
It belongs to the separable verb nabouwen, which means to copy or build a replica of something. In a standard main clause, the core verb (bouwt) takes the second position, and the separable prefix (na) is pushed all the way to the end of that clause.
How does waarvan translate to 'whose' in this sentence?
Waarvan literally means 'where of' but is used to mean 'of which' or 'whose' when referring to things. It refers back to het poppenhuis. In Dutch, you cannot say van wat or van het as a relative pronoun; instead, the preposition van combines with waar to form the single word waarvan.
Why does the verb is go at the very end of the sentence?
The word waarvan introduces a relative clause, which is a type of subclause that gives more information about a noun. These clauses follow subordinate word order in Dutch, meaning all verbs are pushed to the end. Therefore, is must come after erg verfijnd.
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