Ik ga morgen met Tom lopen in het park.

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Breakdown of Ik ga morgen met Tom lopen in het park.

• Tom: Tom
• gaan: to go
• morgen: tomorrow
• in: in
• met: with
• lopen: to walk
• het park: the park

Questions & Answers about Ik ga morgen met Tom lopen in het park.

Why do we use ga + lopen to talk about the future in Dutch?

In Dutch, gaan + infinitive is a common way to express a near future action (similar to "going to" in English). Here, ik ga lopen literally means "I go to walk," which is understood in Dutch as "I am going to walk."

Why is morgen placed right after ga? Can I put it somewhere else in the sentence?

Dutch word order is quite flexible. You’ll often see adverbs of time (such as morgen) placed early in the sentence or directly after the conjugated verb. You could also say Morgen ga ik met Tom lopen in het park without changing the meaning. Placing morgen in different parts of the sentence might slightly change the emphasis, but is grammatically correct.

Why do we say met Tom instead of something else?

When indicating who you’re doing an activity with, Dutch typically uses met (with). If you wanted to emphasize that it’s together with someone, you might say samen met Tom, but usually just met Tom suffices and is more common.

What is the role of in het park at the end of the sentence?

It specifies where the action takes place. Placing in het park at the end sounds natural in Dutch, similar to saying "in the park" at the end of an English sentence. You could move it around (e.g., Ik ga morgen in het park met Tom lopen), but it might sound a bit cumbersome or emphasize the location differently.

Could we use wandelen instead of lopen in this sentence?

Yes! Wandelen generally means a leisurely walk, while lopen can mean walking in general or even running in some cases (depending on context). Either word works, but lopen is more commonly used to describe the act of walking from one point to another.