Breakdown of 's Avonds kookt Tom soep bij het vuur.
Tom
Tom
koken
to cook
bij
by
de soep
the soup
’s avonds
in the evening
het vuur
the fire
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Dutch grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about 's Avonds kookt Tom soep bij het vuur.
What exactly does 's Avonds mean, and why is there an apostrophe?
's Avonds is a contraction of the archaic genitive phrase des avonds (“of the evening”) and simply means in the evening. The apostrophe shows that the “d” in des has been dropped. In running text it’s normally written 's avonds (lowercase a), but at the very start of a sentence you capitalize the A as you would any first letter.
Why is kookt placed before Tom, instead of after?
Dutch follows the V2 (verb-second) rule: when you begin with a time expression ('s Avonds), the finite verb (kookt) must come in the second position, pushing the subject (Tom) to the third slot. If you didn’t front the time phrase, you’d say Tom kookt soep bij het vuur (subject–verb–object).
Why doesn’t soep have an article (like de soep) in this sentence?
Here soep is a general, indefinite object (“soup” in a nonspecific sense). Dutch often omits the article when talking about something in a general or unspecified way. If it were a particular soup, you’d use de soep.
What does bij het vuur mean? Could we use a different preposition?
bij het vuur means by the fire or next to the fire, indicating location. bij is used for being beside or at something. You could also hear aan het vuur, especially when emphasizing direct contact with the flames, but bij het vuur is the most common for “cooking/sitting beside a fire.”
Why is it het vuur and not de vuur?
Dutch nouns are either common gender (de) or neuter (het). vuur (fire) is a neuter noun, so it takes het. Unfortunately, gender must often be memorized or checked in a dictionary.
Can we rearrange the sentence to Tom kookt 's avonds soep bij het vuur?
Yes. Placing the subject (Tom) first restores the normal SVO order:
Tom kookt 's avonds soep bij het vuur.
This is equally correct; it just shifts emphasis back to Tom rather than to the time of day.
Why is the A in Avonds capitalized but the s stays lowercase when it’s at the beginning?
The A is the first actual letter of the sentence, so it’s capitalized. The 's (apostrophe plus s) isn’t treated as a letter, so it remains lowercase even at the start.