Breakdown of Er stond een hek, maar hij liep er stiekem omheen.
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
een
a/an
maar
but
lopen
to walk
Questions & Answers about Er stond een hek, maar hij liep er stiekem omheen.
What does er ... omheen replace in this sentence?
It replaces om het hek heen (around the fence). The Dutch word for 'around' is often the two-part preposition (circumposition) om ... heen. When you refer back to a noun using er (it), those two preposition parts merge into omheen.
Why are er and omheen separated by stiekem?
Complex pronominal adverbs like eromheen are frequently split in Dutch. The word er likes to sit right after the conjugated verb (liep), while the prepositional part (omheen) moves to the end of the clause. This naturally sandwiches other details, like the adverb stiekem, in the middle.
Why does the first clause use stond (stood) instead of was (was)?
Dutch strongly prefers positional verbs like staan (to stand), liggen (to lie), or zitten (to sit) to describe the physical location of an object, rather than the generic zijn (to be). Because a fence stands upright on the ground, stond is the correct choice here.
Could I write eromheen together as one word in this sentence?
Yes, you could say maar hij liep stiekem eromheen. However, splitting it into er ... omheen is much more common and sounds much more natural in everyday spoken Dutch.