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Questions & Answers about Helaas regent het vandaag.
Why is helaas placed at the beginning of the sentence?
Helaas is an adverb expressing regret or disappointment. In Dutch, you can put such adverbs at the start of a main clause to emphasize them. Placing helaas first also triggers the verb-second (V2) rule, so the verb follows immediately.
Why does the verb come before the pronoun (regent het) instead of (het regent)?
Because of Dutch word order. In a main clause with a fronted element (like helaas), Dutch inverts the subject and the finite verb. That’s why you get regent het rather than het regent.
What role does the word het play in this sentence?
In weather expressions, Dutch uses het as a dummy or impersonal subject. There’s no real noun that het refers back to; it simply fills the subject slot required by the syntax.
Could I use er instead of het (for example, “Er regent vandaag”)?
No. Er is used for existential constructions (e.g. Er is een probleem). For weather verbs like regenen, Dutch always uses het as the impersonal subject.
Why is vandaag placed at the end of the sentence?
Vandaag is a temporal adverbial (indicating when). In Dutch main clauses, after subject-verb inversion you generally place time, manner and place adverbials in the middle or at the end. Here vandaag naturally comes at the end.
How is the verb regenen conjugated in the present tense here?
Regenen is a regular verb. To form the third-person singular (hij/zij/het), you take the stem (infinitive minus -en, which is regen) and add -t, yielding hij regent or het regent.
Can I replace helaas with a synonym?
Yes. You could use jammer genoeg or spijtig genoeg with the same structure:
Jammer genoeg regent het vandaag.
The meaning stays virtually the same, and you still follow the adverb-first inversion pattern.