Word
De docent raakt geïrriteerd omdat de studenten afgeleid raken.
Meaning
The teacher gets irritated because the students get distracted.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of De docent raakt geïrriteerd omdat de studenten afgeleid raken.
de student
the student
de docent
the teacher
omdat
because (subordinating)
raken
to get / to become (state change)
Questions & Answers about De docent raakt geïrriteerd omdat de studenten afgeleid raken.
We can translate both raken and worden as "to get" or "to become". Why use raken in this sentence?
The verb raken combined with a past participle is used to describe an unintentional change of state, often an emotional or physical one. If you used worden, it would form a standard passive sentence, sounding as if someone were actively and deliberately irritating the teacher. Using raakt geïrriteerd and afgeleid raken emphasizes that the teacher and students naturally or accidentally slipped into these states of mind.
Why is the spelling geïrriteerd used with two dots (a trema) on the i?
It prevents a pronunciation error. The past participle adds the prefix ge- to the verb irriteren. Without the trema, the adjacent letters ei would be read as the single Dutch vowel sound (like in the word trein). The dots on the i tell you that it starts a brand new syllable: ge-ir-ri-teerd.
Why are the words afgeleid raken placed at the very end of the sentence?
The second half of the sentence starts with omdat (because), which is a subordinating conjunction. This creates a subordinate clause, a grammatical structure that pushes all verbs to the end. Therefore, both the past participle (afgeleid) and the conjugated verb (raken) must cluster together at the end of the clause.
In the subordinate clause, could I swap the order of the verbs to say ?