Wij lopen tot het einde van de straat.

we

Breakdown of Wij lopen tot het einde van de straat.

• lopen: to walk
• van: of
• de straat: the street

Questions & Answers about Wij lopen tot het einde van de straat.

Why does the sentence start with Wij? Can’t we just say We lopen tot het einde van de straat, or even drop the subject entirely?

In Dutch you must have a subject, so you cannot drop it entirely. You have two forms for “we/us”:

• wij is the full pronoun, used for emphasis or in more formal or written contexts.
• we is the reduced, colloquial form you’ll hear in everyday speech.

Both are correct:
• Informal: We lopen tot het einde van de straat.
• Emphatic/formal: Wij lopen tot het einde van de straat.

What exactly does lopen mean here? Can it ever mean “run” or something else?

Primarily, lopen means “to walk.”
• If you want to say “to run,” you use rennen.
• In some contexts, lopen can also mean “to go” in a general sense (e.g. “Dat loopt wel goed” – “That’ll be fine”).
But here, Wij lopen clearly means “We walk.”

What is the meaning of tot in this sentence? Is it “to,” “until,” or something else?

In Dutch tot covers both:
• “up to” (spatial limit)
• “until” (time limit)
In Wij lopen tot het einde van de straat, it’s spatial: “We walk as far as / up to the end of the street.”

Why is it het einde and not de einde, or without an article?