Breakdown of Toen ik het dorp bezocht waarin ik opgroeide, voelde ik veel nostalgie.
ik
I
veel
much / many / a lot of
bezoeken
to visit
het dorp
the village
toen
when / then (in the past)
waarin
in which
voelen
to feel (something) / to seem/feel (a certain way)
opgroeien
to grow up
de nostalgie
the nostalgia
Questions & Answers about Toen ik het dorp bezocht waarin ik opgroeide, voelde ik veel nostalgie.
Why do we use toen instead of als for "when" in this sentence?
In Dutch, toen is used for a single, specific event that happened in the past (visiting the village this one time). If you meant "whenever I visited the village" as a repeated past habit, you would use als.
Why is it voelde ik after the comma rather than ik voelde?
This is because of the V2 (verb-second) rule. The entire first part of the sentence starting with Toen is a subordinate clause that takes up the first position. Therefore, the main verb voelde must immediately follow the comma to take the second position, pushing the subject ik after it.
How does waarin work here? Could I just say in welk?
waarin means "in which". When referring to things (like a village) with a preposition, Dutch combines waar plus the preposition instead of using the preposition plus a relative pronoun. So in wat or in welk becomes waarin.
opgroeien is a separable verb, so why is opgroeide written as one word at the end?
In subordinate or relative clauses like waarin ik opgroeide, the working verb is sent to the very end of the sentence. When a separable verb is pushed to the end like this, its prefix (op) and the main verb (groeide) are stitched back together into a single word.
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