Word
De kwaliteit van het water wordt elke week betrouwbaar gemeten.
Meaning
The quality of the water is measured reliably every week.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of De kwaliteit van het water wordt elke week betrouwbaar gemeten.
het water
the water
elke
every
worden
to get (followed by a comparative adjectives)
van
of
Questions & Answers about De kwaliteit van het water wordt elke week betrouwbaar gemeten.
Why do we use wordt…gemeten here, and how is the passive formed in Dutch?
In Dutch the passive voice is formed with a conjugated form of worden (to become) plus the past participle of the main verb. In this sentence:
- wordt is the 3rd person singular present of worden, agreeing with the singular subject de kwaliteit.
- gemeten is the past participle of meten (to measure).
So wordt betrouwbaar gemeten literally means “is measured reliably.”
Why is it wordt and not worden?
The form of worden in a passive construction must match the grammatical number (and person) of the subject:
- de kwaliteit is singular, so we use wordt (3rd person singular).
- If the subject were plural (e.g. de watermonsters), we would say worden (3rd person plural).
What does betrouwbaar modify here? Is it an adverb or an adjective?
In this sentence betrouwbaar is used adverbially to describe how the measuring takes place (“in a reliable manner”). Dutch adjectives often serve as adverbs without any change in form. So here betrouwbaar modifies the verb gemeten.
Why does elke week come before and ?