De muziek klinkt ouderwets.

The music sounds old-fashioned.

Breakdown of De muziek klinkt ouderwets.

• de muziek: the music
• klinken: to sound
• ouderwets: old-fashioned

Questions & Answers about De muziek klinkt ouderwets.

What does klinkt mean in this sentence?

klinken is an intransitive verb meaning “to sound.” Here klinkt is the third person singular present form, so De muziek klinkt ouderwets literally means “The music sounds old-fashioned.”

Why is ouderwets not ouderwetse or ouderwetsen?

In Dutch, adjectives used predicatively (after verbs like zijn, worden, klinken, etc.) do not take an ending. You only add -e when an adjective stands before a noun (attributive), as in een ouderwetse plaat (“an old-fashioned record”).

What part of speech is ouderwets, and does it act like an adverb here?

Ouderwets is an adjective, but Dutch does not distinguish form between adjectives and adverbs. When you put it after klinken, it describes how the music sounds (so functionally adverbial), yet you still use the base adjective form ouderwets.

Why “de muziek” and not “het muziek”?