De afzender heeft een postbus in de stad Amsterdam.
The sender has a PO box in the city of Amsterdam.
Breakdown of De afzender heeft een postbus in de stad Amsterdam.
een
a/an
hebben
to have
in
in
de stad
the city
de afzender
the sender
de postbus
the PO box
Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Questions & Answers about De afzender heeft een postbus in de stad Amsterdam.
Why is it de stad Amsterdam and not "de stad van Amsterdam"?
In Dutch, when combining a geographical category (like stad, provincie, or land) with its specific name, you just put them side by side. You do not use the preposition van (of) like we do in English. So, "the city of Amsterdam" is simply de stad Amsterdam.
If I wanted to say "the province of North Holland", would I use the exact same structure as de stad Amsterdam?
Yes, exactly! You would say de provincie Noord-Holland. The rule of dropping the equivalent of "of" (van) applies to all geographical categories placed right before their proper names.
Is the word afzender related to the verb zenden (to send)?
Yes! zenden means "to send", and afzenden means "to send off" or "to dispatch". By adding the -er suffix, we get afzender, which means "sender". You will often see it paired with its opposite on an envelope or package: ontvanger (recipient/receiver).
What does the bus in postbus mean here? It obviously doesn't mean a passenger vehicle.
In Dutch, the word bus can mean a large vehicle (a bus), but it also means a "box", "tin", or "can" (like a brievenbus for letterbox, or a beschuitbus for a cracker tin). So a postbus is literally a "post box" or "PO box".
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