Questions & Answers about Hij zit roekeloos aan de bar te gokken.
Why are roekeloos and aan de bar placed between zit and te gokken?
This sentence uses the Dutch continuous aspect, formed by a positional verb (zitten, staan, lopen, or liggen) plus te and an infinitive. In a main clause, the conjugated verb (zit) takes the second position, but te gokken is pushed to the very end of the sentence. All other information, like adverbs and prepositional phrases, is sandwiched between them.
Since we are learning about the passive voice, how would we make this continuous action passive?
You generally cannot keep the zitten te structure in the passive voice. To make this passive, you would have to drop the continuous aspect and use an impersonal passive with er, such as: Er wordt (door hem) roekeloos aan de bar gegokt (Reckless gambling is being done at the bar by him).
Why is the preposition aan used for "at the bar" instead of bij?
You use aan when someone is situated directly at the edge of a surface to interact with it, like a bar, a table, or a desk. If you used bij de bar, it would just mean he is somewhere in the general vicinity of the bar, rather than sitting right up against it.
Could we change the word order to Hij zit aan de bar roekeloos te gokken?
It would be understood, but roekeloos aan de bar sounds much more natural. This follows the standard Dutch word order guideline of "Time, Manner, Place". Roekeloos is the manner (how he gambles), and aan de bar is the place, so the manner comes before the place.
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