Breakdown of De bestrating was slecht, dus er wordt nu naar gekeken.
zijn
to be
nu
now
naar
to
kijken
to watch
Questions & Answers about De bestrating was slecht, dus er wordt nu naar gekeken.
How does er wordt nu naar gekeken translate to "it is now being looked at"?
The Dutch verb kijken takes the fixed preposition naar. When forming a passive sentence without a specific subject doing the looking, Dutch uses the impersonal passive. Instead of using a direct translation of "it", Dutch uses the pronominal adverb ernaar (meaning "at it") which gets split up. Combined with the passive structure wordt ... gekeken, the phrase literally translates to "there is now at (it) looked."
Can I say het wordt nu naar gekeken instead?
No, that would be incorrect in Dutch. When a verb with a fixed preposition (like kijken naar) is turned into a passive referring to an inanimate object, you cannot use the pronoun het (it) with a preposition. Instead, you must combine the preposition with er to form a pronominal adverb (like ernaar) and use this impersonal passive construction.
Why are er and naar separated by the word nu?
Together, er and naar form the pronominal adverb ernaar, which refers back to de bestrating (the paving). In Dutch, these combination words are often split. The er stays near the beginning acting as a dummy subject, while the preposition part (naar) gets pushed toward the end of the clause, sitting just before the past participle gekeken. Other sentence elements, like the time adverb nu, naturally fall between them.