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Questions & Answers about Ik schrijf een tekst.
What does the subject Ik mean in this sentence?
Ik is the Dutch first-person singular pronoun and translates directly to I in English.
How is the verb schrijf conjugated in this sentence?
The verb schrijven (to write) is conjugated as schrijf for the first-person singular in the present tense, meaning I write.
What role does the word een play in the sentence?
Een is an indefinite article in Dutch, corresponding to a or an in English. It indicates that the noun it accompanies—tekst in this case—is unspecified.
How does the word order of the sentence compare to English?
The sentence follows a subject-verb-object (SVO) pattern: Ik (subject) – schrijf (verb) – een tekst (object). This is similar to the standard word order in English.
Can the present tense in Dutch express both habitual actions and actions in progress?
Yes, just like the English simple present can describe habitual actions ("I write a text every day"), it can also be used for ongoing actions depending on the context. Dutch often relies on context rather than a continuous tense form.
How would you alter the sentence to express a past or future action?
To indicate a past action, you could say Ik schreef een tekst, which means I wrote a text. For a future action, you might say Ik zal een tekst schrijven, meaning I will write a text.