Breakdown of We horen dat de jongens de speelplaats op komen rennen.
de jongen
the boy
op
on
komen
to come
horen
to hear
Questions & Answers about We horen dat de jongens de speelplaats op komen rennen.
Why is it komen rennen instead of using a present participle like "come running"?
In English, we say "come running" using an "-ing" word. Dutch expresses this manner of arrival by pairing komen with a bare infinitive. You will see this often with verbs of motion, like komen lopen (come walking) or komen vliegen (come flying).
Why does op come after de speelplaats instead of before it?
Placing the preposition after the noun turns it into a postposition that indicates direction or a change of location. De speelplaats op komen rennen means they are running onto the playground from somewhere else. If you said op de speelplaats, it would sound like they are already on the playground when the running happens.
Why are the verbs komen rennen pushed to the very end of the sentence?
The word dat (that) introduces a subordinate clause. In Dutch subordinate clauses, all verbs are pushed to the end. Since komen rennen acts as a two-verb cluster here, they are moved to the end of the clause together.
Can I flip the verb order to rennen komen at the end of the sentence?
No, in this specific construction, komen acts as the helping verb and must come before the main action verb (rennen). While some verb clusters in Dutch allow you to swap the order, komen plus a bare infinitive of motion is strictly locked in this order.