Word
Wij stammen af van een familie die hier eeuwen geleden woonde.
Meaning
We descend from a family that lived here centuries ago.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Wij stammen af van een familie die hier eeuwen geleden woonde.
wonen
to live
de familie
the family
de eeuw
the century
afstammen
to descend
Questions & Answers about Wij stammen af van een familie die hier eeuwen geleden woonde.
Why does geleden come after eeuwen?
The word geleden means 'ago'. In Dutch, it works as a postposition, meaning it must always be placed after the amount of time it describes. Here, it follows eeuwen (centuries) to form eeuwen geleden (centuries ago).
Why is the verb written as stammen af van?
The infinitive verb is afstammen (to descend), which is a separable verb. In this main clause, the prefix af separates from the verb stem stammen. It is combined with the fixed preposition van (from) to mean 'descend from'.
Why do we use die to mean 'that' in this sentence?
The word die is a relative pronoun referring back to een familie. Because familie is a de-word (de familie), we must use die. If it were a het-word, we would use dat.
Why does the verb woonde go at the very end of the sentence?
The phrase starting with die is a relative clause. In Dutch, relative clauses use subordinate word order, which pushes the conjugated verb (woonde) all the way to the end of the clause.