Breakdown of Wij kiezen duurzame flessen om minder plastic te gebruiken en zo het milieu te beschermen.
wij
we
en
and
om
for
gebruiken
to use
kiezen
to choose
minder
less
beschermen
to protect
duurzaam
sustainable
de fles
the bottle
het plastic
the plastic
zo
thus
het milieu
the environment
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Questions & Answers about Wij kiezen duurzame flessen om minder plastic te gebruiken en zo het milieu te beschermen.
Why does duurzame have an -e ending instead of just duurzaam?
In Dutch, adjectives that come before plural nouns (and before most singular nouns with an article or demonstrative) must take an -e ending. Since flessen is plural, duurzaam becomes duurzame.
Why is the construction om … te gebruiken used here? Can’t you say just om gebruik maken or drop the te?
To express purpose (“in order to…”), Dutch uses om + te + infinitive. You always need te before the infinitive. Om gebruik te maken is a different fixed expression meaning “to make use of,” so you must say om minder plastic te gebruiken for “in order to use less plastic.”
Why is there no article before plastic? Why not het plastic or de plastic?
Plastic here is an uncountable mass noun meaning “plastic material in general.” When you talk about “less plastic” overall, you drop the article. You say minder plastic, just like you’d say minder water (“less water”).
What does en zo add to this sentence? Could you use another word?
En zo means “and so” or “thus,” linking the idea of using less plastic to the result of protecting the environment. You could replace it with en daarmee (“and with that”) or use a causal connector like waardoor (“whereby” / “so that,” often triggering inversion: waardoor we het milieu beschermen).
Why is it het milieu and not de milieu?
Milieu is a neuter noun in Dutch, so you use the neuter article het in the singular: het milieu (“the environment”).
Why start with Wij kiezen instead of just We kiezen?
Both wij and we mean “we.” Wij is the full, stressed form and is often used in writing or for emphasis. We is more colloquial and unstressed, common in speech.
There are two infinitive verbs—gebruiken and beschermen—but only one te. Why?
When multiple verbs are joined in the same purpose clause with en (or en zo), a single te before the first infinitive covers them both. So om minder plastic te gebruiken en zo het milieu te beschermen is correct with only one te.