Learn Hardcore Dutch: De serveerster vond het aangenaam om met ons kennis te maken. - The waitress found it pleasant to get acquainted with us.

In Dutch, het here is a “dummy” or anticipatory pronoun. It doesn’t refer to any concrete noun; instead it fills the subject slot of the clause because the real “subject” is the infinitive phrase om met ons kennis te maken that follows. Compare:
• Het is leuk om hier te zijn.
• Zij vond het fijn om te blijven.
Without het the sentence would be ungrammatical.

How does the om … te construction work in om met ons kennis te maken?

Om … te + infinitive expresses purpose or results (often translated as “to …” or “in order to …”). Structure:

om
any objects or prepositional phrases (met ons)
verb complement or separable prefix (kennis)
te
the main verb (maken)
So om met ons kennis te maken = “to make knowledge with us,” i.e. “to meet us.”

Why is the order om met ons kennis te maken instead of om kennis met ons te maken?

Because Dutch places prepositional objects (here met ons) before the split parts of a separable verb in an infinitive clause. Kennismaken is a separable verb: in finite clauses you’d say ze maakt kennis met ons, but in an om … te clause you also separate:
• correct: om met ons kennis te maken
• less common/awkward: om kennis met ons te maken
The first option flows more naturally.

What exactly does kennis maken mean?

Literally kennis maken = “to make knowledge,” but idiomatically it means “to meet someone for the first time” or “to get to know someone.” You always use it with met plus the person:
• Ik wil met je kennis maken. = “I want to meet you.”
• Leuk om met jullie kennis te maken! = “Nice to meet you all!”

Why is serveerster used here? Is there a gender-neutral alternative?

Serveerster is the traditional feminine form of “waitress.” The masculine is serveerder or more commonly ober (“waiter”). For gender neutrality you can use:
• bedieningsmedewerker (service staff member)
• server (increasingly common)
But serveerster remains very common in everyday Dutch.

Why is there no article like de or een before kennis?

Here kennis maken is a fixed verbal expression, not a noun phrase you can modify. You don’t say een kennis maken, just kennis maken. If you used kennis as a standalone noun meaning “acquaintance,” you could say:
• Hij is een oude kennis van mij. (“He is an old acquaintance of mine.”)
But in the verb phrase you drop the article.

Why is aangenaam an adjective here and not an adverb? Couldn’t you say aangenaamd?

Aangenaam is an adjective used predicatively to describe the experience. Dutch generally doesn’t form an adverb by adding “-d” to adjectives. The English “pleasantly” doesn’t correspond to a Dutch “aangenaamd.” You say:
• Ik vind het aangenaam om hier te zijn.
If you want an adverb, you often use prettig or turn the adjective into an adverbial phrase:
• Ze begroette ons op een aangename manier.

Why is the verb vond in the past tense? Could you use the present tense instead?

The whole sentence is set in the past because the waitress’s reaction happened at a specific moment in the past. If you want it in the present, you’d say:
• De serveerster vindt het aangenaam om met ons kennis te maken.
That means “The waitress finds it pleasant to meet us.”

Why is the object pronoun ons used instead of wij?

In Dutch, wij is the subject pronoun (“we”), while ons is the object pronoun (“us”). After the preposition met, you need the object form:
• Correct: met ons (“with us”)
• Incorrect: met wij