Word
Dat spotgoedkope restaurant had helaas geen splinternieuwe stoelen.
Meaning
That dirt-cheap restaurant unfortunately did not have brand-new chairs.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Dat spotgoedkope restaurant had helaas geen splinternieuwe stoelen.
hebben
to have
geen
no / not any
de stoel
the chair
het restaurant
the restaurant
Questions & Answers about Dat spotgoedkope restaurant had helaas geen splinternieuwe stoelen.
What does the prefix spot- in spotgoedkope literally mean?
The noun spot means mockery or ridicule. So spotgoedkoop literally means 'mockery-cheap'—so cheap it is almost a joke. This is the standard Dutch elative prefix to translate the English concept of 'dirt-cheap'.
What is the origin of splinter- in splinternieuwe?
It literally translates to 'splinter'! It refers to something freshly carved in a woodworker's shop that still has splinters on it. It means exactly the same as the English phrase 'brand-new'.
Do elative compound adjectives always get an -e ending, like spotgoedkope and splinternieuwe do here?
No, they follow the exact same grammar rules as normal adjectives. Restaurant gets an -e here because it is a neuter (het) noun preceded by the demonstrative pronoun dat. Stoelen gets an -e because it is a plural noun. If you had an indefinite neuter noun, the adjective would lose the -e, for example: een spotgoedkoop restaurant.
Why is geen used here instead of niet?