De wekker gaat af om acht uur.

The alarm clock goes off at eight o’clock.

Breakdown of De wekker gaat af om acht uur.

• het uur: the hour
• de wekker: the alarm clock
• om: at
• acht: eight
• afgaan: to go off

Questions & Answers about De wekker gaat af om acht uur.

What does gaat af mean here?

Gaat af is the present‐tense form of the separable verb afgaan, which means “to go off” (like an alarm sounding). In this sentence, gaat is the conjugated verb in second position and af is the separable particle that moves to the end.

Why is af separated and placed at the end of the sentence?

Dutch has many separable verbs (e.g. afdrogen, opstaan, telefoon opnemen). In a main clause, you conjugate the verb stem (here gaat) in the second slot and send the particle (here af) to the end. This is just standard Dutch word order for separable verbs.

Why do we need om before acht uur? In English we just say “at eight o’clock.”

Dutch uses om to introduce a precise clock time:
• om acht uur = “at eight o’clock.”
When you mention an exact hour you always put om in front. In contrast, for parts of the day you’d say in de ochtend (in the morning) without om.

Can I move om acht uur to the front of the sentence?

Yes. If you start with a time expression, the conjugated verb still goes to position 2. So you get:
Om acht uur gaat de wekker af.
Notice gaat remains second, and de wekker follows.

Why is it de wekker and not het wekker?

Every Dutch noun is either de (common gender) or het (neuter). Wekker is a common-gender word, so it takes de.

What if I don’t have a specific alarm—can I say Een wekker gaat af om acht uur?

Yes. Replacing de with een makes it indefinite, meaning “an alarm (some alarm) goes off at eight o’clock.” The grammar and word order stay exactly the same.