Word
Nergens gaat het karretje veel sneller dan in deze looping.
Meaning
Nowhere does the cart go a lot faster than in this loop.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Nergens gaat het karretje veel sneller dan in deze looping.
veel
much / many / a lot of
in
in
snel
fast
gaan
to go / to go off (of an alarm)
Questions & Answers about Nergens gaat het karretje veel sneller dan in deze looping.
Why is the word order gaat het karretje instead of het karretje gaat?
Because the sentence starts with the negative adverb nergens (nowhere). In Dutch, putting a word other than the subject at the beginning of the main clause triggers inversion. The verb (gaat) must stay in the second position, pushing the subject (het karretje) to the third position.
Could I phrase this without the inversion, such as Het karretje gaat nergens veel sneller...?
Yes, standard word order is perfectly fine. However, placing nergens at the front adds strong emphasis. Just like the English "Nowhere does the cart go...", it sounds much more dramatic and absolute than saying "The cart goes nowhere...".
Why is it veel sneller and not erg sneller or heel sneller?
To say "much" or "a lot" before a comparative adjective like sneller, Dutch uses veel. You cannot use erg or heel directly before a comparative, though you might hear heel wat sneller (a whole lot faster).
Is looping a real Dutch word here, or just borrowed English slang?