Word
Als de jongen destijds buiten speelde, was hij blij.
Meaning
Whenever the boy played outside back then, he was happy.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Als de jongen destijds buiten speelde, was hij blij.
zijn
to be
hij
he / it (referring to a 'de'-word)
de jongen
the boy
blij
happy
Questions & Answers about Als de jongen destijds buiten speelde, was hij blij.
Why is als used here instead of toen for a past tense sentence?
Usually, toen translates to "when" for a single, specific event in the past. However, for repeated actions or habits in the past—meaning "whenever" or "every time that"—Dutch uses als. Because the boy playing outside was a recurring event, als is the correct choice here.
What role does the word destijds play in this sentence?
Destijds translates to "back then" or "in those days." It clearly establishes that this was an ongoing or habitual situation in a specific past period, which strongly signals that you need to use the past-habit als rather than a single-event toen.
Why does the second half of the sentence say was hij blij instead of hij was blij?
This is a classic example of V2 (verb-second) word order inversion. The sentence starts with an entire subordinate clause (Als de jongen destijds buiten speelde). Because this whole clause occupies the first position of the overall sentence, the main verb (was) must take the second position, immediately followed by the subject (hij).
Could buiten speelde be written as one word (buitenspeelde)?