Breakdown of De lucht krijgt vanavond een roodachtige kleur.
een
a/an
de kleur
the color
vanavond
tonight
krijgen
to get (receive)
Questions & Answers about De lucht krijgt vanavond een roodachtige kleur.
How does the suffix -achtig change the meaning of rood, and why is there an -e at the end?
The suffix -achtig adds the meaning of English '-ish' or '-like', so rood (red) becomes roodachtig (reddish). We add the -e at the end because it acts as an adjective placed before a noun. Since kleur is a de-word, adjectives describing it always get an -e, even when following the indefinite article een.
Could I use wordt (becomes) instead of krijgt (gets) here?
You could, but you would need to change the sentence structure. In Dutch, things often get (krijgen) a color rather than become a color. If you want to use wordt, you would usually drop the noun kleur and just say: De lucht wordt vanavond roodachtig (The sky is becoming reddish tonight).
Lucht can mean both air and sky. Is there a way to avoid confusion?
Context usually makes it obvious, as it does here: the air you breathe does not turn a reddish color, but the sky does during a sunset. If you need to be very specific, you can use hemel for the sky, but lucht remains the most common, natural choice for the physical sky.
Why do we use the present tense verb krijgt for an event happening later tonight?