De gemeente stuurt een ontvangstbevestiging.

Stuurt is the third-person singular present tense of the verb sturen (to send).

The infinitive is sturen. In the present tense:

• ik stuur = I send
• jij/u stuurt = you send
• hij/zij/het stuurt = he/she/it sends

Here, the subject is de gemeente, which is grammatically third-person singular, so Dutch uses stuurt.

Because de gemeente is the subject of the sentence: it is the thing doing the action.

The structure is:

• De gemeente = subject
• stuurt = verb
• een ontvangstbevestiging = direct object

So this sentence follows the very common Dutch pattern:

Subject + verb + object

That is similar to basic English word order.

De and een are different kinds of articles.

• de = the (definite article)
• een = a / an (indefinite article)

So:

• de gemeente = the municipality
• een ontvangstbevestiging = an acknowledgement of receipt / a confirmation of receipt

The municipality is presented as a specific, known entity, while the acknowledgement is introduced as a thing being sent, not the specific one.

Also, gemeente is a de-word, so its definite article is de.

In this sentence, gemeente means municipality or local authority / local council, depending on context.

For learners, gemeente often first appears in official or administrative Dutch, where it usually refers to the local government of a town or city.

Be aware that gemeente can also mean congregation in a religious context, but that is not the meaning here.

Because Dutch very often forms compound nouns by writing the parts together as one word.

Here:

• ontvangst = receipt / receiving
• bevestiging = confirmation

Together, ontvangstbevestiging means something like confirmation of receipt or acknowledgement of receipt.

This is very normal in Dutch. English often uses several words where Dutch prefers one compound word.

A useful rule:

• In Dutch, the last part usually determines the basic type of word.
• Here, the last part is bevestiging, so the whole word is a noun of that type.

Yes. Dutch is a verb-second (V2) language in main clauses.

In a normal main clause, the finite verb usually comes in the second position.

In this sentence:

• 1st position: De gemeente
• 2nd position: stuurt

That is exactly what Dutch expects.

You could also move another element to the front for emphasis, but the finite verb would still stay in second position. For example:

• Vandaag stuurt de gemeente een ontvangstbevestiging.

Here, Vandaag is first, and stuurt is still second.

Yes, but the tone may change slightly.

• sturen is a very common everyday verb meaning to send
• verzenden is a bit more formal or administrative, often used for mail, parcels, or official sending
• zenden exists too, but in modern everyday Dutch it is less common in this kind of sentence

So De gemeente stuurt een ontvangstbevestiging sounds natural and clear.

In official writing, you might also see:

• De gemeente verzendt een ontvangstbevestiging.

That sounds a little more formal.

A rough English-friendly guide is:

guh-MAIN-tuh

A bit more carefully:

• ge- is usually a weak syllable, like guh
• -meen- has the stressed vowel, somewhat like main
• -te is a weak ending, like tuh

Important note: the Dutch g is not like the English g in go. In standard Dutch, it is a throaty sound that many English speakers find difficult at first.

This is a long word, so it helps to break it up:

ontvangst + bevestiging

A rough guide:

ont-vahngst-buh-VES-ti-ging

Tips:

• ontvangst has a consonant-heavy ending, which can feel difficult
• bevestiging has the main stress on VES
• The final -ing in Dutch is not exactly the same as English -ing

You do not need perfect pronunciation immediately; just learning to divide long compounds into smaller parts helps a lot.

It takes de: de ontvangstbevestiging.

That is because the head word is bevestiging, and bevestiging is a de-word. In Dutch compounds, the final part usually determines the article.

So:

• een ontvangstbevestiging
• de ontvangstbevestiging

not het ontvangstbevestiging

The past tense of sturen is stuurde in the singular.

So the sentence becomes:

De gemeente stuurde een ontvangstbevestiging.

That means The municipality sent an acknowledgement of receipt.

You may also see the perfect tense:

De gemeente heeft een ontvangstbevestiging gestuurd.

That means The municipality has sent an acknowledgement of receipt.