Breakdown of Nagellak verkopen we liever veel.
veel
much / many / a lot of
verkopen
to sell
liever
rather (prefer)
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
de nagellak
the nail polish
Questions & Answers about Nagellak verkopen we liever veel.
Why are nagellak and veel separated in this sentence instead of just saying veel nagellak?
This is a grammatical structure called split topicalization. By pulling the noun (nagellak) to the front of the sentence, you place heavy emphasis on it, as if saying 'As for nail polish...'. The quantifier (veel) gets left behind in the middle of the sentence.
Why isn't there an er in this sentence? I thought we needed to say verkopen we er liever veel.
You only use the quantitative er when the noun you split off is countable (for example: Boeken heb ik er drie). Because nagellak (nail polish) is treated as an uncountable mass noun here, you drop the er and just use veel.
Why is the verb verkopen before the subject we?
Because Dutch is a Verb-Second language. The fronted object nagellak takes up the first position in the sentence. The finite verb verkopen must remain in the second position, which forces the subject we to move directly behind it.
How does liever turn into 'prefer to' in English?
Liever is the comparative form of the adverb graag (gladly). Where English uses a specific verb ('to prefer'), Dutch typically uses an action verb combined with liever. So verkopen we liever literally means 'we more gladly sell'.
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