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Questions & Answers about Het is vandaag bewolkt en koud.
Why does the sentence start with het rather than a specific noun?
In Dutch weather expressions, het functions as a dummy subject, much like English “it” in it’s raining. There is no concrete noun doing the action; het simply fills the grammatical subject slot so you can put the verb is in the second position.
What part of speech is vandaag, and why does it come after the verb?
vandaag is an adverb of time meaning today. Dutch main clauses follow the V2 (verb-second) rule: the finite verb (is) must be in the second position. Here the first element is het (the dummy subject), the second is is, so vandaag (the time adverbial) naturally falls into third position.
Could you also say Vandaag is het bewolkt en koud? Does that change the meaning?
Yes, you can. When you start with vandaag (time adverbial) in first position, the verb is moves to second position and het follows. The meaning stays exactly the same; you’re only shifting emphasis to when rather than to the dummy subject het.
Is bewolkt a verb or an adjective, and why does it end with -t?
bewolkt is originally the past participle of the verb bewolken (to cloud over), but here it’s used as a predicative adjective (describing the weather). Past participles in Dutch end in -t when formed from verbs whose stems end in a voiceless consonant (k → kt).
Why doesn’t koud change to koude to agree with something?
In Dutch, adjectives in predicate position (i.e. immediately after zijn, worden, etc.) remain uninflected. You only add -e to adjectives when they’re in attributive position (directly before a noun), as in koude dag.
Why is the verb is used for describing weather? Aren’t there other verbs?
You use the verb zijn (to be) for states or conditions, including weather conditions (het is warm, het is droog). You would use worden (to become) to talk about a change of weather (for example, het wordt zonnig = it’s becoming sunny).
How do you pronounce bewolkt?
Approximate pronunciation: bə-VOLKT.
• b as in “book”
• ə a schwa, like the ‘a’ in “about”
• VOLK rhymes with “folk” but with a short o
• final -t is crisp, as in “talked”
Can you summarize the V2 word order rule illustrated here?
In a main clause Dutch sentence:
- You place one element (subject, time word, place word, etc.) in the first slot.
- The finite verb goes in the second slot.
- All other elements follow in any sensible order.
In Het is vandaag bewolkt en koud, “het” is slot 1, “is” slot 2, and “vandaag bewolkt en koud” fill out the rest.