Breakdown of Het project zal veel tijd vereisen om te kunnen slagen.
veel
much / many / a lot of
de tijd
the time
het project
the project
kunnen
can
zullen
shall / will
slagen
to pass
te
to (infinitive marker)
om
in order to
vereisen
to require
Questions & Answers about Het project zal veel tijd vereisen om te kunnen slagen.
Why is te placed right before kunnen and not before the main verb slagen?
When an om ... te (in order to) clause has multiple infinitives at the end, te always goes immediately in front of the first infinitive in the cluster. Here, the modal verb kunnen acts as the auxiliary to the main verb slagen, so te must go right before kunnen.
Could I say om te slagen here instead of om te kunnen slagen?
Is vereisen a separable verb?
No, it is inseparable. Verbs starting with unstressed prefixes like be-, ge-, er-, her-, ont-, or ver- do not split. If you used this in a simple present tense sentence without zal, it would stay together: Het project vereist veel tijd.
Why does the om ... te clause come after the infinitive vereisen?
In a standard Dutch sentence, the second verb (here, the infinitive vereisen) gets pushed to the end. However, om ... te clauses are 'extra' information that almost always get placed outside this verbal bracket, landing at the very end of the sentence so the sentence does not become too clunky.
Learn Het project zal veel tijd vereisen om te kunnen slagen and more in Dutch
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free