Breakdown of Voeg een liter water en twee lepels olijfolie toe.
een
a/an
en
and
het water
the water
twee
two
Questions & Answers about Voeg een liter water en twee lepels olijfolie toe.
Why is there no Dutch word for "of" in een liter water and twee lepels olijfolie?
In Dutch, when you express a quantity followed by the substance being measured, you just put the two nouns right next to each other. Unlike in English, you do not use the preposition van (of) between them.
I remember that measure words often stay singular after a number. Why does this sentence use the plural twee lepels instead of twee lepel?
You are right that standard exact units of measurement (like liter, kilo, or meter) stay singular after a number greater than one. However, informal measurements that are everyday physical objects—like lepels (spoons), glazen (glasses), or flessen (bottles)—take a normal plural ending.
Following that rule, if I needed to add two liters of water, would it just be twee liter water?
Exactly. Because a liter is a standard, exact unit of measurement, it stays in the singular form even when the number is plural. You would say twee liter water.
Why is the word toe placed at the very end of this sentence?
The verb here is toevoegen (to add), which is a separable verb. This sentence is an imperative (a command), so the core verb (voeg) moves to the front of the sentence, and the separable prefix (toe) gets sent to the very end.