Breakdown of Ik heb een nieuwe fiets, waarmee ik snel naar school kan gaan.
ik
I
hebben
to have
gaan
to go
naar
to
de school
the school
nieuw
new
kunnen
can
snel
quickly
een
a, an
de fiets
the bike
waarmee
with which
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Questions & Answers about Ik heb een nieuwe fiets, waarmee ik snel naar school kan gaan.
What does waarmee mean, and how is it formed?
waarmee is a relative pronoun meaning with which. It’s formed by combining waar (“where”/“which”) with mee (“with”). Use it when referring back to a thing (here fiets) and linking it to a verb via the preposition met.
Why can’t we use die or dat instead of waarmee?
die and dat are basic subject/object relative pronouns for de-words and het-words, but when a preposition is needed (like met), Dutch prefers the “waar-” compounds (waarmee, waarvoor, waarover, etc.) for things. die alone can’t carry the preposition.
Why not use met welke instead of waarmee?
Although met welke fiets is understandable, Dutch style favors “waar” + preposition in relative clauses referring to inanimate objects. Therefore waarmee sounds more natural than met welke.
Why do kan and gaan appear together at the end of the clause?
After a relative pronoun like waarmee, you’re in a subordinate clause, which uses verb-final word order. When you have a modal verb (kan) plus a main verb (gaan), the modal precedes the main verb and both go to the very end: … kan gaan.
Why is there no article before school (i.e. naar school instead of naar de school)?
For institutional or routine destinations—going to school, home, church—Dutch drops the article: naar school, naar huis, naar bed. Adding de would imply a specific school building rather than the general activity of attending school.
Why does nieuw(e) get an -e ending? Why not een nieuw fiets?
In Dutch, adjectives receive an -e when they follow an article and modify a de-word (common gender). Since fiets is a de-word and we have een, the adjective becomes nieuwe: een nieuwe fiets. (Neuter het-words with een do not take -e, as in een nieuw boek.)
Why is there a comma before waarmee? Is it always necessary?
The comma marks the boundary between the main clause (Ik heb een nieuwe fiets) and the relative clause (waarmee …). It’s common for readability but not strictly mandatory; in informal writing you might see it dropped, yet standard practice includes it.
Why is snel placed before naar school rather than after?
Adverbs in Dutch generally precede the elements they modify. Here snel qualifies the act of going and so comes directly before the prepositional phrase naar school. Moving it elsewhere would break the normal word order and/or separate the verb cluster.