Breakdown of Ze lijken het gerucht veel sneller te verspreiden.
zij
they
veel
much / many / a lot of
snel
fast
te
to (infinitive marker)
lijken
to seem
het gerucht
the rumor
verspreiden
to spread (scatter, distribute)
Questions & Answers about Ze lijken het gerucht veel sneller te verspreiden.
How would you write this sentence using a dat (that) clause instead of the te + infinitive structure?
You would write: Het lijkt (erop) dat ze het gerucht veel sneller verspreiden. In our target sentence, the subject ze (they) has been "raised" out of the dat-clause to become the subject of the main verb lijken. The verb from the dat-clause (verspreiden) then turns into a te + infinitive phrase at the end of the sentence.
Why are lijken and te verspreiden separated by the rest of the sentence?
In a Dutch main clause, the conjugated verb (here, lijken) must take the second position. The te + infinitive construction (te verspreiden) gets pushed to the very end of the sentence. The object and adverbs (het gerucht veel sneller) are sandwiched in between.
Could I use schijnen or blijken instead of lijken here?
Grammatically yes, but the nuance changes. Lijken means 'to seem' based on your own visual or personal impression. Schijnen means 'to seem' based on hearsay (e.g., people say they spread it faster). Blijken means 'to turn out' or 'to be proven' based on actual hard evidence.
Why does te come before the whole word verspreiden instead of in the middle?
Verspreiden is an inseparable verb because it starts with the unstressed prefix ver-. If it were a separable verb (like uitdelen), the te would go between the prefix and the core verb (forming uit te delen). Because verspreiden is inseparable, te stays a separate word placed right in front of it.
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