Breakdown of Ze huilde van blijdschap toen ze de brief las.
lezen
to read
de brief
the letter
huilen
to cry
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
ze
they; she (unstressed form of zij) / them (object)
toen
when / then (in the past)
de blijdschap
the joy
Questions & Answers about Ze huilde van blijdschap toen ze de brief las.
Where does the d in blijdschap come from if the adjective is just blij?
The suffix -schap turns the adjective blij (glad/happy) into the abstract noun blijdschap (joy). The d is a historical leftover from an older spelling of the adjective (blijde or blijd). When attaching -schap to create states or collectives, you will occasionally see these older forms preserved, so it is best to just memorize the spelling of blijdschap.
Why use van here? Could I say huilde uit blijdschap?
For physical, involuntary reactions caused by a strong emotion, Dutch strongly prefers the preposition van. So you get huilen van blijdschap (crying from joy), rillen van de kou (shivering from cold), or beven van angst (shaking from fear). You use uit more for deliberate actions motivated by something, like uit liefde (out of love).
Is it possible to use wanneer instead of toen for "when" in this sentence?
No, toen is mandatory here. Because this describes a single, specific event in the past (she read the letter once), Dutch strictly requires toen. You only use wanneer in the past tense if you mean "whenever" (a repeated action, e.g., whenever she read his letters, she would cry).
As a quick refresher, why is the verb las at the very end of the sentence?
The word toen is a subordinating conjunction, which means it introduces a dependent clause. In Dutch dependent clauses, all verbs (in this case, just the simple past verb las) are pushed to the end of the clause.
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