Questions & Answers about Als de groenten langer zouden garen, zou de smaak nog beter zijn.
Because the conditional in Dutch uses the past-tense of zullen, which still agrees with the subject:
- de groenten is plural → zouden garen (“would cook”)
- de smaak is singular → zou … zijn (“would be”)
In a subordinate clause introduced by als, Dutch puts all verbs at the end. Here you have two verbs:
- zouden (the auxiliary)
- garen (the infinitive) They both go to the clause-final position: “Als … zouden garen.”
After an als-clause it’s common to invert subject and auxiliary in the main clause to signal the result part of a conditional. So instead of:
• “De smaak zou nog beter zijn”
it becomes:
• “Zou de smaak nog beter zijn”
This inversion (auxiliary first, then subject) is stylistic and typical in formal conditional sentences.
Nog means “even” or “still” here. In front of a comparative adjective it intensifies it:
• beter = better
• nog beter = even better
They’re similar but not identical:
- koken = to boil or cook in general
- garen = to cook through, to let something reach full doneness
In a recipe context, garen focuses on achieving the right internal texture/taste rather than just heating.
Yes, you can form a more literary conditional by inverting both verbs and subjects without als:
• “Zouden de groenten langer garen, dan zou de smaak nog beter zijn.”
But the version with als + simple inversion (as in the original) is more common in everyday Dutch.