Breakdown of We moeten het lettertype van de lay-out veranderen.
moeten
to have to, must
veranderen
to change
van
from (possession, starting point) / made of
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
het lettertype
the font
de lay-out
the layout (page, graphic design)
Questions & Answers about We moeten het lettertype van de lay-out veranderen.
How would I apply this lesson's compound adverbs to say "We must change the font of that" (referring to the layout)?
To point back to a specific inanimate object like the layout, you replace the preposition van and the noun with a compound pronominal adverb. For exact pinpointing ("of that"), you combine daar (there) + van (of) to make daarvan. The sentence becomes: We moeten het lettertype daarvan veranderen.
Why is it het lettertype when the word letter is a de word?
Lettertype is a compound noun made of de letter and het type. In Dutch, compound nouns always inherit the article and gender of their final part. Since type is a neuter word (het), the entire compound becomes het lettertype.
Why does the English loanword lay-out have a hyphen here?
Dutch has specific spelling rules for English loanwords. While English often writes them as one solid word (layout), Dutch spelling dictates that a noun formed from an English verb plus an adverb or preposition usually gets a hyphen. You'll see this same rule in words like de make-up and de drive-in.
As a quick refresher, why is the verb veranderen sitting at the very end of the sentence?
This happens because of the modal verb moeten (must). In a standard Dutch main clause, the conjugated modal verb takes the second position, which forces the main action verb (veranderen) all the way to the end of the sentence in its full infinitive form.
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