Breakdown of De sleutelpassage ligt boven de valvloer.
liggen
to lie
boven
above
de sleutelpassage
the crux
de valvloer
the padded floor
Questions & Answers about De sleutelpassage ligt boven de valvloer.
Why does the sentence use de twice?
Because both nouns in the sentence are common-gender singular nouns:
- de sleutelpassage
- de valvloer
In Dutch, the definite article is either de or het. Here, both nouns take de, so you get de ... de ....
English uses the for all nouns, but Dutch splits this into two articles.
Why is it de sleutelpassage and not het sleutelpassage?
Dutch nouns are assigned to either:
- common gender → de
- neuter gender → het
Sleutelpassage is a de-word, so it must be de sleutelpassage.
A useful thing to know about compounds in Dutch: the last part usually determines the grammatical gender of the whole word. Since passage is a de-word, sleutelpassage is also a de-word.
The same idea applies to valvloer: the final part vloer is a de-word, so the whole compound is de valvloer.
Is sleutelpassage one word because Dutch likes compounds?