Breakdown of De gevel is deels van glas en deels van hout.
zijn
to be
en
and
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
het hout
the wood
Questions & Answers about De gevel is deels van glas en deels van hout.
How does the deels ... deels structure work, and can I use gedeeltelijk instead?
Deels ... deels translates to 'partly ... partly.' It is used to show that something consists of two or more contrasting parts or materials. You absolutely can use gedeeltelijk ... gedeeltelijk instead, but deels is much more common in this repeated correlative structure because it is shorter and flows better.
Why use van glas and van hout instead of the material adjectives glazen and houten?
In Dutch, you can say something is made of a material using is van + noun (like is van hout). If you wanted to use the adjectives glazen (glass) and houten (wooden), you would usually need a noun to attach them to. Saying de gevel is deels glazen sounds incomplete on its own as a predicate. Van glas and van hout act perfectly as standalone descriptions here.
Why don't we need to repeat the verb after en, like en is deels van hout?
Just like in English, Dutch uses conjunction reduction, which means leaving out words that are identically repeated in connected clauses. Since the subject (de gevel) and the verb (is) are the exact same for both parts, you can safely drop them in the second half after en.
Does gevel just mean 'wall'?