Word
Wat mij betreft, is de thriller het beste genre.
Meaning
As far as I am concerned, the thriller is the best genre.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Wat mij betreft, is de thriller het beste genre.
zijn
to be
mij
me
best
best
betreffen
to concern / to regard
Questions & Answers about Wat mij betreft, is de thriller het beste genre.
Why is the verb is placed before the subject de thriller in the main clause?
The phrase Wat mij betreft acts as a single block that takes up the first position in the sentence. Because Dutch is a Verb-Second (V2) language, the conjugated verb is must be in the second position. This forces the subject de thriller to swap places with the verb and move to the third position.
Why does this sentence use the object pronoun mij instead of ik?
The phrase literally translates to "what concerns me." Because the person is the object receiving the action of the verb betreft (concerns), you must use the object pronoun mij (or the unstressed me) rather than the subject pronoun ik.
What is the literal meaning of the verb betreft in this structure?
Betreft comes from the verb betreffen, which means "to concern," "to apply to," or "to relate to." Wrapping a noun or pronoun inside wat ... betreft is the standard Dutch way to frame a topic, equivalent to "as for..." or "as far as [something/someone] is concerned."
Since genre is a het-word, why does the adjective beste still get an -e ending here?