Breakdown of Wij namen afscheid van de collega's na het jubileum.
de collega
the colleague
het jubileum
the anniversary / the jubilee
afscheid nemen van
to say goodbye to
Questions & Answers about Wij namen afscheid van de collega's na het jubileum.
The current lesson is about using "over" for future time. Could I use "over" instead of "na" in this sentence?
No, because they mean different things. Over is used before an amount of time to mean "in" (like over een uur, meaning "in an hour"). Na simply means "after" a specific event, which is exactly what happens here with na het jubileum (after the jubilee).
Is "namen afscheid van" a fixed expression?
Yes, afscheid nemen van means "to say goodbye to" or literally "to take leave of". Because the sentence is in the past tense and the subject is the plural wij, the verb nemen becomes namen.
Why does the plural word "collega's" use an apostrophe?
Dutch uses an apostrophe-s for plural nouns that end in a single open vowel, such as A, I, O, U, or Y. This protects the long vowel sound. If you wrote collegas, the final A would incorrectly be pronounced as a short vowel.
Why is the definite article "het" used for "jubileum"?
Nouns ending in -um are usually borrowed from Latin, and they almost always take het in Dutch. Other common examples include het museum and het centrum.
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