Een werkwoord helpt ons spreken.

Because een werkwoord is a singular subject, so the verb must be conjugated in the third person singular.

The infinitive is helpen.
The present-tense form here is helpt:

• ik help
• jij helpt
• hij/zij/het helpt

So Een werkwoord helpt ... is grammatically correct.

Dutch often puts the conjugated verb in the second position of a main clause, and any extra verb, such as an infinitive, goes later in the clause, often at the end.

So the pattern is:

• Een werkwoord = subject
• helpt = finite/conjugated verb
• ons = object
• spreken = infinitive at the end

This is very normal Dutch word order.

Because spreken is an infinitive here, not a separately conjugated verb.

Only helpt is conjugated.
This works like English:

• helps us speak
• not helps us speaks

So Dutch uses spreken in the same way English uses speak after helps.

After helpen, Dutch often uses a bare infinitive, so te is often left out.

So helpt ons spreken is a normal structure.

You may also come across helpt ons te spreken, but without te is very common and natural. As a learner, it is useful to recognize that helpen can be followed directly by another verb.

Because ons is the object form meaning us, while wij is the subject form meaning we.

Compare English:

• It helps us speak ✔
• It helps we speak ✘

In this sentence, ons is the people receiving the help and also the people doing the speaking.

Yes, ons can also be a possessive word meaning our, but not in this sentence.

Here is how you can tell:

• ons by itself after the verb = us
• ons before a noun = can be our in some cases, for example ons huis

In Een werkwoord helpt ons spreken, ons stands alone, so it means us.

Here een is the indefinite article, meaning a or an.

It is different from één, which means one when you want to stress the number.

So here:

• Een werkwoord = A verb
• not specifically One verb

In speech, the article een is usually unstressed.

Yes. Dutch usually writes compound nouns as one word.

So:

• werk = work
• woord = word
• werkwoord = verb

This is very common in Dutch. Words that are separate in English are often joined together in Dutch.

It is het werkwoord.

You cannot see that from this sentence alone, because een is used for both de-words and het-words in the singular.

So the dictionary form is:

• het werkwoord

A useful breakdown is:

• Een werkwoord = subject
• helpt = finite verb
• ons = object pronoun
• spreken = infinitive

So the sentence means that a verb does the helping, and we/us are the ones who end up speaking.

A very close English structure is:

• A verb helps us speak

That is why this sentence often feels quite approachable to English speakers, even though the Dutch word order rule is still important.