Breakdown of Anna hoort het sein en stopt met tekenen.
Anna
Anna
en
and
met
with
stoppen
to stop
tekenen
to draw
horen
to hear
het sein
the signal
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Questions & Answers about Anna hoort het sein en stopt met tekenen.
What does the verb hoort mean here, and why isn’t luistert used instead?
hoort is the 3rd person singular present of horen (“to hear”). It denotes the passive reception of sound (“Anna hears the signal”). luisteren means “to listen” (actively paying attention to sounds), so you wouldn’t use luister here when you simply receive the sound.
What exactly is sein? Doesn’t that look like “sign”?
In this context sein is a noun meaning “signal” (e.g. a train signal or warning light). It is not “sign” (which is usually teken or bord in Dutch).
Why does sein take the article het rather than de?
sein is a neuter noun (a “het‑woord”) in Dutch. All neuter nouns take het in the singular, e.g. het huis, het kind, het sein.
Why is there met in stopt met tekenen?
When you “stop doing” an activity in Dutch, you use stoppen met + infinitive. The met introduces the action you cease, so stopt met tekenen = “stops drawing.”
Why is tekenen (the infinitive) used here instead of something like a gerund?
Dutch doesn’t have a separate gerund form. After a preposition (met), you use the bare infinitive as a noun‑like verbal noun. So tekenen works like the English “drawing.”
Could you omit met and say Anna stopt tekenen?
No. Dutch grammar requires met after stoppen when you specify the halted activity. Omitting met would be ungrammatical.
Is there an alternative to stoppen met for “stop doing something”?
Yes. You can also use ophouden met + infinitive: Anna houdt op met tekenen. stoppen and ophouden are near‐synonyms here, though ophouden can sound a bit more formal or emphatic.
Why isn’t there a comma before en in this sentence?
In Dutch you don’t normally use a comma before en when it joins two verbs (or clauses) with the same subject. Here Anna is the subject of both hoort and stopt, so no comma is needed.