Word
De voorbereiding kost veel tijd.
Meaning
The preparation costs a lot of time.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of De voorbereiding kost veel tijd.
veel
much / many / a lot of
de tijd
the time
kosten
to cost
de voorbereiding
the preparation
Questions & Answers about De voorbereiding kost veel tijd.
How does the suffix -ing work to create the word voorbereiding?
Voorbereiding is formed from the separable verb voorbereiden (to prepare). To turn the action into a noun, you take the verb stem (voorbereid) and add the suffix -ing. Notice that the separable prefix voor- stays firmly attached to the new noun.
Is there a rule for knowing whether to use de or het with voorbereiding?
Yes! Any noun created by adding the -ing suffix to a verb is always a de-word. This makes it very easy to remember the article for nominalized actions.
Why does the Dutch sentence use kost instead of a word for 'takes'?
This is a fixed collocation in Dutch. While in English an activity 'takes time', in Dutch it 'costs time' (kost tijd). You can also use the expression neemt tijd in beslag (takes up time), but kost tijd is the most common and direct way to express this.