Breakdown of Dat was het meest ingewikkelde probleem.
zijn
to be
het probleem
the problem
dat
that (het-words)
meest
most
ingewikkeld
complicated
Questions & Answers about Dat was het meest ingewikkelde probleem.
Why do we use het meest ingewikkelde here instead of adding -st to make it het ingewikkeldste?
In Dutch, long adjectives or adjectives that are hard to pronounce with an extra -st use meest (most) instead. Because ingewikkeld is long and ends in a -d, adding -ste sounds clunky, so it is much more common to say het meest ingewikkelde.
Why does ingewikkelde have an -e at the end?
Because probleem is a het-word and it is preceded by the definite article het. When an adjective comes between a definite article (de or het) and a noun, it gets an -e at the end.
If the sentence was plural ('Those were the most complicated problems'), would Dat change to Die?
No, it would still be Dat. When pointing something out using the verb zijn (to be), Dutch uses the fixed forms dat or dit as the subject, even if the noun that follows is plural. You would say Dat waren de meest ingewikkelde problemen.
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