Breakdown of Waarom stinkt deze melk zo erg?
de melk
the milk
erg
very / really
deze
this / these
waarom
why
zo
so (to such a degree)
stinken
to stink
Questions & Answers about Waarom stinkt deze melk zo erg?
Why do we use zo erg for "so much" instead of zo veel?
In Dutch, erg is used to describe the intensity or severity of an action or feeling (like smelling bad, missing someone, or hurting). Veel is used to talk about literal quantity or frequency. Because the smell is intensely bad, we say it stinks zo erg.
Why is the verb stinkt placed before the subject deze melk?
Because the sentence starts with the question word Waarom, the subject (deze melk) and verb (stinkt) must swap places. This is called inversion. The verb takes the second grammatical position in the sentence, right after the question word.
Why is it deze melk and not dit melk?
Melk is a de-word (de melk). When you want to say "this" with a de-word, you always use deze. If you were talking about a het-word, like het water, you would use dit (dit water).
How would this sentence change if I wanted to ask why the milk became so bad, using worden from this lesson?
To say "Why has this milk become so bad?", you would use the perfect tense of worden (to become). Because worden always takes zijn as its helping verb, the sentence would become: Waarom is deze melk zo erg geworden? Notice that geworden goes to the very end of the sentence.
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