Breakdown of Die rits, die is kapot, dus ik koop een nieuwe laars.
ik
I
zijn
to be
een
a/an
kopen
to buy
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
nieuw
new
dus
so, therefore
kapot
broken
de rits
the zipper
de laars
the boot
Questions & Answers about Die rits, die is kapot, dus ik koop een nieuwe laars.
Why say Die rits, die is kapot instead of just Die rits is kapot?
This is Left Dislocation, the main topic of your current lesson. By pulling Die rits to the absolute front and repeating it with the demonstrative pronoun die, you strongly emphasize the zipper as the topic of the sentence. It is similar to saying "That zipper, it is broken" in English, but this structure is extremely common and natural in spoken Dutch.
Why do we use die as the second word instead of hij or dat?
In Left Dislocation, you use a demonstrative pronoun to point back to the promoted topic. Because rits is a de-word (de rits), you must use the demonstrative pronoun die. If the topic were a het-word, like het raam (the window), you would use dat: Dat raam, dat is kapot. Using a personal pronoun like hij does not work for this specific grammatical structure.
Why is the word order dus ik koop and not dus koop ik?
The word dus (so) is a coordinating conjunction here, just like en (and) or maar (but). Coordinating conjunctions link two main clauses together without counting as the first position of the second clause. Because of this, they do not trigger verb inversion, and the subject ik stays right before the verb koop.
Why does nieuw get an -e ending in een nieuwe laars?
Because laars is a de-word (de laars). Adjectives almost always get an -e ending when placed before a noun. You only leave off the -e if the noun is a singular het-word preceded by an indefinite article like een (for example, een nieuw boek). Since laars takes de, the adjective becomes nieuwe.
Learn Die rits, die is kapot, dus ik koop een nieuwe laars and more in Dutch
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free