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Questions & Answers about Ik wis het bestand.
Why does wis only have one 's' when the verb is wissen?
The infinitive is wissen (to delete or erase). To find the "I" form (the stem), you remove -en, which leaves wiss. However, Dutch spelling rules do not allow a word to end in a double consonant, so we drop one 's' to make it wis.
Can I use verwijderen instead of wissen here?
Yes, verwijderen (to remove or to delete) and wissen (to wipe, erase, or delete) are often used interchangeably on computers and phones. Ik verwijder het bestand means exactly the same thing.
Why is it het bestand and not de bestand?
bestand is a neuter noun, which means it uses het. While you often just have to memorize noun genders, a helpful pattern is that many nouns starting with the prefix be- (like het begin, het besluit, het beroep) are neuter words.
If I want to delete multiple files, how does the sentence change?
It becomes Ik wis de bestanden. The plural of bestand gets the standard -en ending. Notice that the article changes to de, because all plural nouns in Dutch take de, even if they are het words in the singular.