Word
De fiets wordt roestig als je hem buiten laat staan.
Meaning
The bike becomes rusty if you leave it outside.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De fiets wordt roestig als je hem buiten laat staan.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
de fiets
the bicycle
buiten
outside
staan
to stand
Questions & Answers about De fiets wordt roestig als je hem buiten laat staan.
Why does this sentence use wordt instead of just is?
In this context, wordt acts as a linking verb meaning 'becomes' or 'gets', showing a change in state. If you said De fiets is roestig, it would just mean the bike is already rusty right now.
How would I change the first part of the sentence to say 'The bike has become rusty'?
You need the perfect tense of worden. It uses zijn as the helping verb along with the past participle geworden. So, 'The bike has become rusty' is De fiets is roestig geworden.
Why use hem (him) to refer to a bike?
Because fiets is a de-word. In Dutch, it is standard to refer back to most de-words using the masculine pronouns hij (he) and hem (him), while het (it) is reserved strictly for het-words.
Why do the verbs laat and staan both go at the very end of the sentence?
The word als (if) creates a subordinate clause. The rule for subordinate clauses is that all verbs get pushed to the end. Here, the conjugated verb laat and the infinitive staan group together at the end of the clause.