Breakdown of Ruik jij die verschrikkelijke stank ook?
jij
you
ook
also / -ever (concessive particle)
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
ruiken
to smell
verschrikkelijk
terrible
de stank
the stench
Questions & Answers about Ruik jij die verschrikkelijke stank ook?
Why is it ruik jij instead of ruikt jij?
When the subject jij or je comes right after the verb, the -t at the end of the verb is dropped. This happens in questions, or when the sentence starts with something other than the subject (inversion).
Why does verschrikkelijke get an -e at the end, and how do you pronounce it?
Because stank is a de-word and it is preceded by die (that), the adjective gets the standard -e ending. Watch out for the pronunciation: the suffix -lijk sounds like "luk", so the ending is pronounced "luk-uh".
Why does the word ook go at the very end of this sentence?
In Dutch, adverbs like ook (too/also) usually come after the direct object. Since the direct object here is the entire phrase die verschrikkelijke stank, ook gets pushed to the very end of the sentence.
Is the noun stank related to the verb stinken?
Yes! Stank is the noun form of the strong verb stinken (to stink). You can often see this type of vowel change in Dutch noun-verb pairs.
How would I use this lesson's grammar to say "The stench has become terrible"?
To say something "has become", you use the perfect tense of worden (to become). Because worden takes zijn as its helping verb in the perfect tense, you would say: De stank is verschrikkelijk geworden.
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