Word
Er liggen hier wat koopjes tussen het zilverwerk.
Meaning
There are some bargains here among the silverware.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Er liggen hier wat koopjes tussen het zilverwerk.
hier
here
er
there (existential)
liggen
to lie
wat
something / some (a little)
Questions & Answers about Er liggen hier wat koopjes tussen het zilverwerk.
I know wat means "what" or "a little" (like wat water). Can it be used with a plural countable noun like koopjes?
Yes! While you probably first learned wat as a question word or with uncountable nouns, in everyday Dutch it is also used before plural countable nouns to mean "some" or "a few". So wat koopjes means "some bargains". You could also use een paar koopjes or enkele koopjes.
Why do we use liggen here instead of zijn for "There are"?
Dutch heavily prefers positional verbs (staan, liggen, zitten) to describe locations, whereas English simply uses "to be". Since silverware and items for sale are usually resting flat on a table or in a pile, liggen is the natural choice. Using zijn here would sound unnatural to a native speaker.
Why does hier come before wat koopjes? Wouldn't "Er liggen wat koopjes hier..." make more sense?
In sentences starting with er as a placeholder subject, the actual, indefinite subject (in this case, wat koopjes) is pushed later in the sentence. It typically lands after time and place adverbs like hier.
Does tussen translate to "among" here? I thought it meant "between".