De schuur is heel oud.

to be

Breakdown of De schuur is heel oud.

• heel: very
• oud: old
• de schuur: the shed

Questions & Answers about De schuur is heel oud.

Why does the sentence start with De schuur instead of something like Het schuur?

In Dutch, schuur (meaning "barn" or "shed") is typically a de-word, not a het-word. Most nouns in Dutch are de-words; only a smaller set use het. So we say de schuur.

What does heel mean here, and are there other ways to say "very"?

Heel here means "very," emphasizing how old the shed is. Other common Dutch words for "very" include erg, zeer, and heel erg. But heel is one of the most natural and colloquial choices in everyday speech.

Is heel an adjective or an adverb in this sentence?

In this sentence, heel functions as an adverb modifying the adjective oud. It emphasizes the degree of "oldness."

Why is the word order De schuur is heel oud and not something else?

Dutch typically follows a Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) structure in simple statements. Here, De schuur is the subject, is is the verb, and the complement/adjective heel oud comes at the end. This is the standard neutral order for a descriptive sentence in Dutch.