Breakdown of Nauwelijks was de beugel dicht, of we werden gelanceerd.
zijn
to be
dicht
closed
worden
to become
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
Questions & Answers about Nauwelijks was de beugel dicht, of we werden gelanceerd.
Why does the sentence start with Nauwelijks was de beugel instead of Nauwelijks de beugel was?
Putting a restrictive adverb like Nauwelijks (hardly) at the very beginning of the sentence creates a strong emphasis. In Dutch, placing anything other than the subject in the first position triggers the V2 (verb second) rule, causing subject-verb inversion. Therefore, the verb was must immediately follow Nauwelijks, placing it before the subject de beugel.
Why does the second clause start with of? Shouldn't "when" be translated as toen here?
In Dutch, nauwelijks is part of a fixed paired construction: nauwelijks ... of ... (hardly ... when ...). You cannot use toen or wanneer in this specific pattern to mean "when". Another similar pair you will often encounter in Dutch is amper ... of ... (barely ... when ...).
Why is it werden gelanceerd and not waren gelanceerd?
This is the simple past tense of the passive voice. The passive voice describes an action being done to the subject and is formed with worden plus a past participle. Since the action happened in the simple past ("we were launched"), you use the past tense of worden, which is werden. If you used waren, it would form the past perfect passive, meaning "we had been launched".
What exactly is a beugel in this context? I thought it meant dental braces.