Breakdown of Je moet de wijn walsen voordat je drinkt.
drinken
to drink
moeten
to have to, must
de wijn
the wine
je
you (unstressed form of jij)
voordat
before
walsen
to swirl
Questions & Answers about Je moet de wijn walsen voordat je drinkt.
Wait, doesn't walsen mean 'to waltz'?
Yes! Walsen is the verb for dancing the waltz, but in the context of wine tasting, it means to swirl the wine in your glass. It perfectly describes the circular, dancing motion you make with the liquid.
If I wanted to say 'before you drink it', would I use het?
Because wijn is a de-word, you would actually use hem to say 'it', making the clause voordat je hem drinkt. Many learners default to het for 'it', but that only works for het-words. However, just like in English, omitting the pronoun entirely works perfectly fine here.
Why does the verb drinkt sit at the very end of the sentence?
The word voordat (before) introduces a subordinate clause. A major rule in Dutch is that in subordinate clauses, the conjugated verb is pushed to the very end. Since je drinkt is just a subject and a verb, drinkt naturally acts as the caboose.
This lesson is about short-to-long vowel shifts in diminutives. Does wijn or wals change vowels if made diminutive?
No, neither does. Wijn already contains a long diphthong, so it simply becomes het wijntje (often used to mean 'a glass of wine'). The noun form of a swirl or waltz is de wals, which becomes het walsje with no vowel shift. The short-to-long vowel shift you are learning about applies to specific short vowels, such as the container you'd swirl this wine in: het glas becomes het glaasje.
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