Breakdown of Deze roman leest vlot weg, maar die serie kijkt ook makkelijk weg.
ook
also / -ever (concessive particle)
maar
but
deze
this / these
die
that / those (de-words and plurals)
makkelijk
easy
de serie
the series
de roman
the novel
weglezen
to read easily
vlot
smoothly / quickly
wegkijken
to watch easily
Questions & Answers about Deze roman leest vlot weg, maar die serie kijkt ook makkelijk weg.
Why are roman (novel) and serie (series) the subjects of lezen (to read) and kijken (to watch) if they cannot actually perform those actions?
This is the facilitive middle voice. Instead of saying that you are easily reading the book, you make the book the subject to describe how it undergoes the action. It is similar to saying "this car drives well" in English, but Dutch uses this structure for a much wider variety of verbs.
What does the word weg add to leest and kijkt in this sentence?
Adding weg creates the separable verbs weglezen and wegkijken. In this specific middle voice context, weg emphasizes consuming something continuously and without any mental effort. It gives the feeling that you are easily breezing through the book or mindlessly bingeing the TV show.
Could I leave out weg and just say Deze roman leest vlot?
Yes, you can! Deze roman leest vlot is completely correct and simply means "This novel reads smoothly." Keeping weg in the sentence just gives it that extra casual nuance of finishing the media quickly and effortlessly.
Why does the second clause (maar die serie kijkt...) keep a normal Subject-Verb word order instead of pushing the verb to the end?
This is a good refresher on conjunctions: maar (but) is a coordinating conjunction. Just like en (and) and of (or), it connects two main clauses without changing the word order. If you had used a subordinating conjunction like hoewel (although), the verb would have been pushed to the end of the sentence.
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