Breakdown of Anna zoekt de afdeling groenten en fruit in de supermarkt.
Anna
Anna
in
in
en
and
de groente
the vegetable
Questions & Answers about Anna zoekt de afdeling groenten en fruit in de supermarkt.
What does afdeling mean?
The Dutch noun afdeling means department or section, as in a part of a store, library, museum, etc. In this context it’s the “vegetables and fruit department.”
Why does zoekt end in -t?
In Dutch, the present-tense form for third-person singular (he/she/it) adds -t to the verb stem. The infinitive is zoeken (“to look for”), so the stem is zoek. Conjugation looks like:
• ik zoek
• jij/u zoekt
• hij/zij/het zoekt
• wij/jullie/zij zoeken
Why is there only one de before afdeling, and none before groenten or fruit?
The article de belongs to the head noun afdeling. The words groenten and fruit simply specify what kind of afdeling it is (“the vegetables and fruit section”). It’s like English “the fruit and vegetable department”—you don’t repeat “the.”
Could you say de afdeling van groenten en fruit instead?
Yes, but it’s less idiomatic. Dutch often links nouns directly without van. de afdeling groenten en fruit is more concise than de afdeling van groenten en fruit.