Breakdown of Pas als je je instapkaart toont, mag je naar de gate.
naar
to
mogen
to be allowed to / may
je
your (unstressed)
tonen
to show
pas als
only if
de instapkaart
the boarding pass
de gate
the gate
Questions & Answers about Pas als je je instapkaart toont, mag je naar de gate.
Why is the verb mag placed immediately after the comma?
The entire conditional clause Pas als je je instapkaart toont occupies the first position of the main sentence. Because Dutch is a verb-second (V2) language, the main verb mag must come next. This causes inversion of the subject and verb in the main clause, giving us mag je instead of je mag.
Isn't je je a typo? Why are there two identical words next to each other?
It's not a typo! The first je is the subject pronoun ("you"), and the second je is the possessive pronoun ("your"). You will see this double je je often in Dutch. If you wanted to add emphasis, you could say jij jouw, but je je is the standard, natural way to say "you your" in everyday speech.
Does pas als mean exactly the same as alleen wanneer here?
They are very similar and can both translate to "only if" and be used interchangeably in this sentence. However, pas als (literally "not until" or "only once") puts a slightly stronger focus on the timeline: you must complete the condition before the next step can happen. Alleen wanneer is a slightly more formal, pure condition.
The English translation says "go to the gate", but there is no word for "go" in the Dutch sentence. Why is it missing?
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