Breakdown of Naar verluidt is de directeur corrupt.
zijn
to be
de directeur
the director (of a company or school)
naar
as (according to what someone knows/says)
corrupt
corrupt
verluiden
to be reported
Questions & Answers about Naar verluidt is de directeur corrupt.
The lesson covers phrases with a subject and verb, but where is the subject in naar verluidt?
Naar verluidt is a fixed, fossilized expression derived from the formal verb verluiden (to sound, to be reported). It literally means "according to how it is reported". Unlike phrases like naar ik aannem, the dummy subject het (it) has dropped out of this phrase over time, leaving just the preposition naar and the third-person conjugated verb verluidt.
Why does the verb is come right after naar verluidt?
Because naar verluidt functions as an adverbial phrase placed at the very beginning of the sentence. This triggers the standard Dutch V2 (verb-second) rule. The phrase takes up position one, so the main verb (is) must take position two, pushing the subject (de directeur) to position three.
Is naar verluidt commonly used in everyday spoken Dutch?
No, it is quite formal. You will encounter naar verluidt frequently in journalism, news broadcasts, and official reports to mean "reportedly" or "allegedly". In casual conversation, a Dutch speaker would be much more likely to say het schijnt dat de directeur corrupt is (it seems that...) or ze zeggen dat... (they say that...).
Do I need to change verluidt to the past tense if I am talking about a past event?
No, because naar verluidt is a completely frozen expression, it never changes its form. If you wanted to say "Reportedly, the director was corrupt," you would only change the tense of the main verb in the sentence: Naar verluidt was de directeur corrupt.
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