Word
Zij heeft een hekel aan die film.
Meaning
She really dislikes that film.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Zij heeft een hekel aan die film.
de film
the film
een hekel hebben aan
to really dislike, to not be able to stand
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Dutch grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Zij heeft een hekel aan die film.
Why do we use aan here instead of a word for 'of' or 'about'?
The expression een hekel hebben (to really dislike or to hate) always takes the fixed preposition aan to show what you dislike. Just like English has fixed pairings like 'afraid of', Dutch uses een hekel aan.
Is hekel a verb meaning 'to hate'?
No, hekel is a noun here. You can tell because it comes after een (a). The literal translation of this sentence is 'She has a dislike to that film.'
Why is it die film and not dat film?
The word film is a de-word (de film). For de-words, you must use die to say 'that'. If it were a het-word, you would use dat (for example, dat boek).
Could I say Ze instead of Zij here?
Yes, you can. Both mean 'she', but Zij is the stressed form. Using Zij puts a little extra emphasis on her specifically. For example, it might imply that she hates the film, even if everyone else liked it.