Breakdown of Al dat roesten maakt het wrak gevaarlijk voor iedereen.
maken
to make
dat
that (het-words)
voor
for (on behalf of)
gevaarlijk
dangerous
iedereen
everyone
al
all (the)
het wrak
the wreck
roesten
to rust
Questions & Answers about Al dat roesten maakt het wrak gevaarlijk voor iedereen.
Why do we use dat instead of die before roesten?
Roesten is the infinitive of the verb 'to rust', but here it is being used as a noun to mean 'rusting'. In Dutch, whenever you use a full infinitive as a noun (a nominalized infinitive), it is always a neuter (het) word. Therefore, we must use the neuter demonstrative pronoun dat (that).
Why is it Al dat roesten and not Alle dat roesten?
When expressing 'all that...' or 'all the...' with a singular neuter noun, you use the uninflected form al. Because roesten is a neuter noun paired with dat, it becomes al dat roesten. You would use alle for plurals or with singular de-words.
What is the difference between het roesten and de roest?
De roest is the standard noun for the physical substance 'rust'. Het roesten is the verb acting as a noun, meaning the ongoing process of 'rusting'. The sentence deliberately uses roesten to emphasize that the active, continuous decay is what makes the wreck dangerous.
I learned that 'to make' is often translated as laten. Why do we use maakt here?
It depends on what you are making! You use laten when 'make' means forcing or causing someone to perform an action (e.g., 'The movie makes me cry' = De film laat me huilen). However, when you cause a noun to take on an adjective's property, like changing the state of the wreck to be dangerous, you must use maken.
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