Breakdown of Wij bespreken het contract tijdens onze vergadering.
wij
we
onze
our
tijdens
during
bespreken
to discuss
de vergadering
the meeting
het contract
the contract
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Questions & Answers about Wij bespreken het contract tijdens onze vergadering.
Why does bespreken end in -en and not bespreekt?
In present tense Dutch, verbs agree with the subject. Plural subjects like wij (we), jullie (you pl.) and zij (they) use the infinitive form, which ends in -en. Only singular subjects take -t, for example jij bespreekt or hij bespreekt.
Why is het contract used and not de contract?
Dutch nouns are either common gender (taking de) or neuter (taking het). contract is a neuter noun, so it requires het contract.
Could we say ons contract instead of het contract?
Yes. ons is the possessive pronoun for singular neuter nouns. If you replace the article with possession, you get Wij bespreken ons contract tijdens onze vergadering.
Why is the phrase tijdens onze vergadering at the end of the sentence, and can we move it?
Dutch main clauses generally follow Subject–Verb–Object–Adverbial order. tijdens onze vergadering is a time adverbial, so it naturally comes after the object het contract. You can move it to the front for emphasis, but then you must apply the verb-second (V2) rule and invert subject and verb:
Tijdens onze vergadering bespreken wij het contract.
What’s the difference between tijdens and gedurende?
Both words mean during. tijdens is more common in everyday speech, while gedurende sounds a bit more formal or literary. Both are followed directly by a noun phrase (no preposition van needed): tijdens de vergadering / gedurende de vergadering.
Why is the possessive pronoun onze used before vergadering instead of ons?
Possessive pronouns agree with the noun’s gender: use onze for common-gender (de-words) and plural nouns, and ons for singular neuter (het-words). vergadering is a de-word, so you need onze vergadering.
Can we omit the subject wij and say Bespreken het contract…?
No. Dutch requires an explicit subject in main clauses (except in imperatives). Starting with a verb and no subject leads to ungrammatical word order.
Is there a difference between wij bespreken and we bespreken?
we is the unstressed, informal variant of wij. Both mean we, but wij is more emphatic or formal, while we is very common in spoken Dutch.