Questions & Answers about Wij hebben veel geluk.
Why does the Dutch sentence use hebben (have) instead of a verb for 'are'?
Why does the translation say 'very lucky' but the Dutch sentence uses veel (much/a lot of)?
This goes back to geluk being a noun. In English, you modify the adjective 'lucky' with 'very'. In Dutch, you are describing the amount of the noun geluk (luck), so you must use veel (much/a lot of). You cannot use an adverb like erg (very) directly with a noun.
This lesson is about the word dat (that). How would this sentence look if it came after Ik denk dat (I think that)?
The word dat introduces a subordinate clause, which pushes the conjugated verb to the very end of that clause. The verb hebben would move to the end, making the sentence: Ik denk dat wij veel geluk hebben.
Is there a difference between using wij and we here?
Wij is the stressed pronoun and we is the unstressed version. You use wij here if you want to emphasize that we are the ones who are lucky, perhaps in contrast to someone else who is not. If there is no special emphasis on who is lucky, we hebben veel geluk is perfectly fine and more common in casual speech.
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