Breakdown of De fietsenstalling is handig, dus er wordt veel gebruik van gemaakt.
zijn
to be
veel
much / many / a lot of
maken
to make
worden
to become
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
dus
so, therefore
er
it (in 'er ... op/mee', pronominal adverb)
het gebruik
the use; the custom
handig
handy
de fietsenstalling
the bicycle parking / the shed
Questions & Answers about De fietsenstalling is handig, dus er wordt veel gebruik van gemaakt.
Where does the van in the second half of the sentence come from?
It comes from the fixed expression gebruik maken van (to make use of). When we turn this into a passive sentence, van combines with er to mean "of it" (referring to the bicycle parking). Using er plus a preposition is the standard way to form passive sentences from verbs that have fixed prepositions.
Why are er and van separated by veel gebruik instead of staying together as ervan?
In Dutch, pronominal adverbs (words like ervan, erover, ermee) almost always split in a main clause. The word er likes to take a spot near the beginning of the clause, while the preposition (van) gets pushed towards the end, landing just before the past participle (gemaakt).
Is er acting as a dummy subject here, or just as part of ervan?
It is actually doing double duty! First, it is part of ervan, meaning "of it". Second, because the grammatical subject of the passive clause is indefinite (veel gebruik, meaning "a lot of use", rather than "the use"), Dutch requires er to act as a placeholder subject at the start of the clause to introduce it.
Why does the second clause start with er wordt rather than inverting the subject and verb after dus?
The word dus (so/therefore) can act as a coordinating conjunction, just like en (and) or maar (but). It simply links two independent main clauses without triggering any special word order changes. Because of this, the second clause follows standard main clause word order.
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