Word
We waren met z'n drieën doodmoe na de vlucht.
Meaning
The three of us were dead tired after the flight.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of We waren met z'n drieën doodmoe na de vlucht.
zijn
to be
drie
three
met
with
de vlucht
the flight
Questions & Answers about We waren met z'n drieën doodmoe na de vlucht.
What kind of word is doodmoe and how is it formed?
Doodmoe is an elative compound adjective, which means it uses a prefix to strongly intensify the adjective. Here, dood (dead) is fused with moe (tired) to mean "exhausted." In English you also say "dead tired," but in Dutch, it is combined into one single word rather than using a separate intensifier like heel (very).
Why does the sentence use z'n (his) in met z'n drieën when the subject is We?
This is a highly common fixed idiom in Dutch. When saying "the [number] of us/you/them", Dutch uses met z'n followed by the number, no matter who the subject is. The word z'n has lost its literal meaning of "his" in this phrase and acts as a fixed grammatical placeholder. You will also hear met z'n tweeën (the two of us/them) and met z'n allen (all of us/them).
Why does drie have an -en ending and a trema (ë) here?
In the met z'n... construction, the number gets a plural -en ending because it refers to a group of people. Because the word drie ends in the vowel combination ie, simply adding en would make drieen, which would confuse the pronunciation. The trema (the two dots) is placed on the ë to indicate that a new syllable starts there.
Why does met z'n drieën come before the adjective ?