Breakdown of Zij verkopen hier namelijk de lekkerste ham.
hier
here
zij
they
lekker
tasty / nicely / pleasantly
verkopen
to sell
Questions & Answers about Zij verkopen hier namelijk de lekkerste ham.
The English translation starts with "Because," but there is no want or omdat in the Dutch sentence. How does that work?
The word namelijk literally means "namely" or "you see," but it is frequently used to give a reason for whatever was just said in the previous sentence. Because namelijk is an adverb and not a conjunction like omdat, it doesn't send the verb to the end of the sentence. The clause remains a normal main clause starting with the subject (Zij) and the verb (verkopen).
In this sentence, ham is an uncountable mass noun referring to the meat in general. How would I use a diminutive to talk about a countable, small whole ham?
To turn this mass noun into a countable object (like a small, whole piece of ham on the bone), you use the diminutive hammetje. Remember that all diminutives are het words, so if you applied it here, the article would change too: het lekkerste hammetje. Note that if you just want a countable slice of ham for a sandwich, you would say een plakje ham.
Why does the superlative adjective lekkerste get an -e added to the end here?
Ham is a de word. When you place a superlative adjective directly in front of a noun, it almost always gets an -e ending. The definite article must also match the noun, which gives us de lekkerste ham.
If I wanted to start the sentence with Hier to emphasize the location, what would happen to the word order?