Learn Hardcore Dutch: Wij ontbijten meestal samen in het weekend. - We usually have breakfast together on the weekend.

Use wij when you want to emphasize we (for contrast: Wij ontbijten samen, maar zij niet – We eat breakfast together, but they don’t).
In neutral speech, many people actually say we ontbijten meestal samen in het weekend. Both are correct.

What exactly does the verb ontbijten mean, and why isn’t it something like hebben ontbijt?

Ontbijten is a verb that means to have breakfast / to eat breakfast.
Dutch turns the noun ontbijt (breakfast) into a verb by adding -en, so you don’t normally say hebben ontbijt.

So:

Wij ontbijten = We have breakfast / We eat breakfast
Using hebben ontbijt would sound incorrect or at best very odd to a native speaker.

How is ontbijten conjugated in the present tense?

The infinitive is ontbijten, with the stem ontbijt. Present tense:

ik ontbijt – I have breakfast
jij / je ontbijt – you have breakfast
hij / zij / het ontbijt – he / she / it has breakfast
wij / jullie / zij ontbijten – we / you (pl.) / they have breakfast

In the sentence Wij ontbijten meestal samen in het weekend, ontbijten is the 1st person plural form, which is the same as the infinitive.

What kind of word is meestal, and why is it placed after the verb?

Meestal means usually / most of the time and is an adverb of frequency.
In Dutch main clauses, the finite verb normally comes in second position, and adverbs like meestal often come directly after the verb.

So:

Wij ontbijten meestal samen… (neutral)
You can also say Meestal ontbijten wij samen in het weekend to emphasize usually more strongly.

Can meestal go in a different place in the sentence?

Yes, Dutch word order is somewhat flexible, and you can move meestal for emphasis. All of these are possible:

Wij ontbijten meestal samen in het weekend. (neutral)
Meestal ontbijten wij samen in het weekend. (emphasis on usually)
Wij ontbijten samen meestal in het weekend. (less common; sounds a bit clumsy but not “wrong”)

The most natural choices are the first two, with meestal close to the verb or at the very start of the sentence.

What does samen mean here, and where does it usually go in the sentence?

Samen means together. It’s an adverb that describes how you do something (the manner).

In this sentence, samen comes after meestal, forming meestal samen (usually together). You’ll often see samen close to the verb or the object:

Wij ontbijten samen. – We have breakfast together.
Wij eten samen pizza. – We eat pizza together.

Why is it in het weekend and not something like op het weekend?

For the time period weekend, Dutch normally uses the preposition in: in het weekend = at the weekend / on the weekend.
Op het weekend is not idiomatic Dutch in this meaning.

Some other time expressions use op (e.g. op maandag – on Monday), but weekend is a bit special and takes in in this context.

Why is it het weekend with het, and is the article always needed?

Weekend is a het-word in Dutch, so the definite article is het: het weekend.
In this kind of time expression, you almost always say in het weekend, not just in weekend.

Compare:

in het weekend – at/on the weekend (usually means: on weekends in general)
in de zomer – in (the) summer
The article is part of the fixed expression here.

Does in het weekend mean every weekend or just one specific weekend?

In het weekend usually means on weekends in general, i.e. a habitual action.
Context can also make it refer to a specific coming weekend, but without extra context, speakers normally understand it as a regular habit.

So in this sentence, it’s best understood as:

We usually have breakfast together on weekends.

Could the subject wij be left out, like in some other languages?

No, not in normal Dutch. Unlike Spanish or Italian, Dutch is not a “null-subject” language: you almost always need to say the subject pronoun.

So:

Wij ontbijten meestal samen in het weekend. ✅
Ontbijten meestal samen in het weekend. ❌ (wrong in standard Dutch; only possible as a very fragmentary note or headline)

The verb ending alone is not enough; you still say ik, jij, hij, wij, etc.