Breakdown of Ik ben erg blij met deze crème, want hij smeert prettig uit.
ik
I
zijn
to be
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
blij
happy
met
with
erg
very / really
deze
this / these
want
because
prettig
pleasantly / nice (pleasant, comfortable)
uitsmeren
to spread
de crème
the cream
blij zijn met
to be happy with
Questions & Answers about Ik ben erg blij met deze crème, want hij smeert prettig uit.
Why does this sentence use the active verb uitsmeren when the cream is the thing being spread?
This is the facilitive middle voice. Just like in English (it spreads nicely), Dutch uses the active verb uitsmeren combined with an adverb of manner (prettig) to describe how easily the subject undergoes the action. The cream is being acted upon, but it acts as the grammatical subject.
Why is the cream referred to as hij?
Crème is a de-word. In everyday Dutch, inanimate de-words are almost always referred to with the masculine pronoun hij (he), while het (it) is strictly reserved for het-words.
Why doesn't the word want push the verb to the end of the clause?
Want (because) is a coordinating conjunction, which means it joins two main clauses together. In a main clause, normal word order applies, so the conjugated verb (smeert) stays in the second position. If you used omdat (which is a subordinating conjunction), the verb would move to the end: omdat hij prettig uitsmeert.
Why is uit at the very end of the sentence?
The verb here is actually uitsmeren (to spread out), which is a separable verb. Because this clause has normal main-clause word order, the conjugated part (smeert) takes the second position, and the prefix (uit) gets pushed to the end of the clause.
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