Word
Zelfs met een stevige beugel voelt het intens.
Meaning
Even with a firm restraint it feels intense.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Zelfs met een stevige beugel voelt het intens.
een
a/an
met
with
het
it
voelen
to feel (something) / to seem/feel (a certain way)
Questions & Answers about Zelfs met een stevige beugel voelt het intens.
Why is it voelt het instead of het voelt?
In English, we often use a comma after an introductory phrase and keep the normal subject-verb order like 'Even with X, it feels...'. In Dutch, the entire phrase Zelfs met een stevige beugel occupies the first position. Because Dutch is a Verb-Second (V2) language, the verb voelt must come immediately after it, pushing the subject het to position three.
Is zelfs acting like the restrictive adverbs in this lesson to trigger inversion?
Not directly. In the current lesson, putting words like zelden at the front triggers inversion simply because they take up the first position. Here, zelfs (even) modifies the entire prepositional phrase met een stevige beugel, making that whole chunk position one. This naturally leads to standard Verb-Second inversion, rather than being a special emphatic rule just for zelfs.
How does beugel mean a restraint here? I thought it meant dental braces.
The word beugel broadly refers to a curved bracket, bar, or clamp used to hold things in place. While it often means dental braces (een beugel hebben), it is also the standard word for a safety harness on a rollercoaster, a wall bracket, or a bra wire. The intense feeling mentioned here strongly points to an amusement park ride.
Why does stevige get an -e ending here?