Breakdown of Haar moedertaal is Frans, wat haar mooie accent verklaart.
zijn
to be
mooi
beautiful
haar
her
wat
that / which (relative)
Frans
French
verklaren
to declare (state officially / explain)
de moedertaal
the mother tongue
het accent
the accent
Questions & Answers about Haar moedertaal is Frans, wat haar mooie accent verklaart.
Why does the second clause start with wat instead of dat or die?
In Dutch, you use wat when the relative pronoun refers back to an entire preceding sentence or clause. Here, wat refers to the whole fact that her mother tongue is French. If it referred back to a specific noun, you would use die or dat.
Since accent is a neuter noun (het accent), shouldn't it be haar mooi accent without the -e?
No, the adjective still gets an -e here. Adjectives in front of het nouns only drop the -e when they are indefinite (meaning they follow een, geen, or no article). Possessive pronouns like haar make the noun definite, so mooi takes the standard -e ending to become mooie.
Why is the verb verklaart placed at the very end of the sentence?
The word wat introduces a relative clause, which functions as a subordinate clause. In Dutch subordinate clauses, the conjugated verb is always pushed to the end.
Because this lesson covers separable verbs, I was wondering: why doesn't verklaart split at the end of the sentence?
The verb verklaren (to explain) is an inseparable verb. Verbs that start with unstressed prefixes like be-, ge-, er-, her-, ont-, and ver- never split, regardless of their position in the sentence or the grammar structure being used.
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