Breakdown of De directeur wil het aanvragen van de subsidie delegeren.
willen
to want
het
it
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
de directeur
the director (of a company or school)
aanvragen
to apply for
de subsidie
the subsidy / the grant
delegeren
to delegate
Questions & Answers about De directeur wil het aanvragen van de subsidie delegeren.
This lesson is about the 'te + infinitive' structure like de te aanvragen subsidie. Why does this sentence use het aanvragen instead?
This sentence focuses on delegating the action itself ('the applying'), rather than describing the subsidy as something that must be applied for. By adding het before the infinitive, aanvragen becomes a noun. If the sentence had used the lesson's structure—De directeur wil de te aanvragen subsidie delegeren—it would mean he wants to delegate the subsidy itself, which makes less sense than delegating the task of applying.
Why is the preposition van used here instead of a Dutch word for 'for'?
Because het aanvragen acts as a noun here. In Dutch, when you turn a verb into a noun and attach its logical object (the thing being applied for), you connect them with van. Literally, it translates to 'the applying of the subsidy'. If it were used as a normal verb rather than a noun, there wouldn't be a preposition at all: de subsidie aanvragen.
Why is the main verb delegeren pushed all the way to the end of the sentence?
This is the standard Dutch verb brace in action. The conjugated modal verb wil takes the second position in the sentence, which forces the main infinitive delegeren to the very end of the clause. The entire direct object, het aanvragen van de subsidie, is sandwiched between them.
Aanvragen is a separable verb. Why isn't it separated in this sentence?
When you nominalize a separable verb—meaning you turn it into a noun by putting het in front of it—the prefix and the verb stay glued together. Because it functions as a noun here, 'the applying' is always written as the single word het aanvragen.
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