Question 1

Why does mooie get an -e ending, but kaki does not?

Accepted Answer

Regular adjectives like mooi get an -e when they come before a plural noun like T-shirts. However, kaki is an invariable adjective. Because it is a loanword ending in a vowel, it never takes the -e ending. This is also true for other similar words, like roze or gratis.

Question 2

Why is the verb hebben placed before the subject we?

Accepted Answer

This is a great refresher on the Dutch V2 (verb-second) rule. Because the sentence starts with the time word Gisteren, the conjugated verb hebben must take the second position, which pushes the subject we to the third position.

Question 3

Why does the Dutch sentence use hebben ... besteld (have ordered) when the English translation uses the simple past (ordered)?

Accepted Answer

In everyday spoken and written Dutch, the present perfect tense is the standard choice for describing completed past events. While you could technically use the simple past bestelden, it would sound unusually formal or literary in this everyday context.

Question 4

How does the pluralization of the English loanword T-shirts work in Dutch?

Accepted Answer

It works just like in English. Since the word ends in a consonant, the plural is formed by simply adding an -s directly to the word. If the loanword had ended in a long vowel, you would use an apostrophe-s instead, as in foto's or taco's.

Gisteren hebben we mooie kaki T-shirts besteld.

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