Word
Soms denk ik terug aan de dierbare levensfase dat wij samen studeerden.
Meaning
Sometimes I think back to the precious phase of life that we studied together.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Soms denk ik terug aan de dierbare levensfase dat wij samen studeerden.
ik
I
wij
we
samen
together
soms
sometimes
Questions & Answers about Soms denk ik terug aan de dierbare levensfase dat wij samen studeerden.
Since levensfase is a de word, shouldn't the relative pronoun be die instead of dat?
Normally, yes. However, here dat is not acting as a standard relative pronoun meaning 'which'. Instead, it is a temporal relative replacing waarin ('in which'). In Dutch, you can use dat to refer back to a moment or period in time, similar to how we use 'that' or 'when' in English.
Could I use toen instead of dat here, since it refers to the past?
No, you cannot use toen here. While toen means 'when', it is a conjunction used to introduce a completely new time clause (for example: Toen wij samen studeerden, waren we gelukkig). Here, you need a relative word that directly refers back to the noun levensfase, so you must use either waarin or the temporal dat.
Why do we use the preposition aan in this sentence?
It is required by the verb. The infinitive form is terugdenken aan (to think back to / to reminisce about). When a preposition is permanently tied to a verb like this, it is called a fixed preposition and the combination simply has to be memorized.
Does the adjective dierbare mean financially expensive?