Word
De directeur heeft de afdeling gemanaged en het personeel gebrieft.
Meaning
The director managed the department and briefed the staff.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of De directeur heeft de afdeling gemanaged en het personeel gebrieft.
en
and
hebben
to have
het
it
de afdeling
the department
Questions & Answers about De directeur heeft de afdeling gemanaged en het personeel gebrieft.
Why does gemanaged end in -d?
For English loanwords in Dutch, the 't kofschip rule still applies, but you must look at the pronunciation of the stem, not just the spelling. The stem of managen ends in a voiced /dʒ/ sound (like the 'j' in "jump"). Because this sound is not in the voiceless consonants of 't kofschip, the past participle gets a -d.
Why is the 'e' from "manage" kept in the spelling of gemanaged?
If the Dutch past participle were spelled gemanagd without the 'e', a Dutch speaker would naturally read the 'g' as a throaty Dutch 'g' (like in goed) and make the 'a' short. The 'e' is kept to preserve the English pronunciation of the stem.
Why does gebrieft end in -t when the English past tense is "briefed"?
Don't let the English past tense spelling confuse you! Dutch builds its participles using Dutch rules. The Dutch verb is briefen, so the stem ends in an /f/ sound. Because /f/ is in 't kofschip, the past participle takes a -t: ge- + brief + -t.
Why isn't the auxiliary verb heeft repeated before gebrieft?
When two main clauses are joined by en (and) and share the exact same subject and auxiliary verb, you can leave the auxiliary out of the second half. This is called ellipsis, and it makes the sentence flow more naturally by avoiding repetition.