Enerzijds is de snelweg snel, anderzijds geniet ik meer van de rustige weg door het bos.

Enerzijds is de snelweg snel, anderzijds geniet ik meer van de rustige weg door het bos.
On the one hand the highway is fast, on the other hand I enjoy the quiet road through the forest more.
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Dutch grammar and vocabulary.

Start learning Dutch now

Questions & Answers about Enerzijds is de snelweg snel, anderzijds geniet ik meer van de rustige weg door het bos.

Why is snelweg spelled as one word?
In Dutch, many combinations of a noun and an adjective or two nouns form a single compound word. snel (fast) + weg (road) becomes snelweg (motorway). Unlike English where you might say “fast road,” Dutch concatenates them.
What do enerzijds … anderzijds mean?

They correspond to English “on the one hand … on the other hand.”
• enerzijds introduces the first viewpoint (“on one side”)
• anderzijds introduces the contrasting viewpoint (“on the other side”)

Why does the verb come before the subject in the second clause?

Dutch follows the V2 (verb-second) rule in main clauses. When you start a sentence with an adverbial element like anderzijds, the finite verb must occupy the second position, so the subject (ik) follows it: “Anderzijds (1) geniet (2) ik (3) …”

Why is it de rustige weg and not de rustig weg?

When an adjective precedes a noun with the article de, it usually takes an -e ending.
• rustig = quiet (base form)
• rustige weg = quiet road (adjective inflected with -e)

Why is it het bos instead of de bos?
Dutch nouns belong to either the common gender (using de) or neuter (using het). bos (forest) is neuter, so you say het bos.
What does geniet ik meer van mean?

genieten van is the verb “to enjoy.”
• ik geniet = I enjoy
• meer = more
• van introduces what you enjoy
So ik geniet meer van X means “I enjoy X more.”

Why is door het bos used here?
The preposition door means “through.” You use door + definite article + noun to express moving through something. Hence door het bos = “through the forest.”
Do enerzijds and anderzijds need an article?
No, they are adverbs, not nouns. Adverbs in Dutch never take articles.
Can you split snelweg into snel weg?
No. snelweg is a fixed compound noun. If you wrote snel weg, it would be interpreted as an adjective + noun phrase “fast road,” but idiomatically and orthographically you must write snelweg as one word when you mean “motorway.”