Het regent hevig, want de lucht is heel donker.

It’s raining heavily because the sky is very dark.

Breakdown of Het regent hevig, want de lucht is heel donker.

• zijn: to be
• heel: very
• want: because
• het: it
• regenen: to rain
• donker: dark
• de lucht: the sky
• hevig: heavily

Questions & Answers about Het regent hevig, want de lucht is heel donker.

Why do we use het in Het regent?

In Dutch, weather verbs like regenen need a subject, but there’s no “real” subject (you’re not literally talking about a thing). So we use an impersonal pronoun het—just like English uses “it” in “it’s raining.”

Why does regent end with -t?

Dutch verbs in the present tense take -t in the third‐person singular (he/she/it). Here het is third person singular, so regenen becomes regent.

What part of speech is hevig, and why doesn’t it get an -e?

Here hevig functions as an adverb (“heavily”). In Dutch, adverbs are identical to the adjective’s uninflected form, so you don’t add -e.

Why is hevig placed after regent instead of before it?

In a simple main clause, Dutch places the finite verb in second position and many adverbs (like hevig) immediately after that verb. So you get Het (1) regent (2) hevig (3)….

What kind of conjunction is want, and how does it differ from omdat?

want is a coordinating conjunction (“because/for”), so the clause after it keeps normal word order (subject–verb). omdat is subordinating, which would push the verb to the end:
• Coordinating: …, want de lucht is heel donker.
• Subordinating: …, omdat de lucht heel donker is.

Why is the adjective donker not donkere in de lucht is heel donker?

That’s because donker here is predicative (it follows the verb is). Predicative adjectives in Dutch stay in their base form. Only attributive adjectives (before a noun, as in de donkere lucht) take an -e.

Why do we say de lucht and not het lucht?

Dutch nouns are classified as de-words or het-words, largely by convention (with few clear-cut rules). lucht happens to be a de-word, so it’s de lucht.

What role does heel play in heel donker, and could I use erg or zeer instead?

heel is an intensifier (“very”). You can indeed say erg donker (more colloquial, sometimes a bit stronger/negative) or zeer donker (more formal). All three mean “very dark,” but the nuance shifts slightly by register.