Het onweer barst plotseling los.

The thunderstorm suddenly breaks out.

Breakdown of Het onweer barst plotseling los.

• plotseling: suddenly
• het onweer: the thunderstorm
• losbarsten: to break out

Questions & Answers about Het onweer barst plotseling los.

In Het onweer barst plotseling los, what does het mean here? Is it the or it?

In this sentence, het is the definite article the, not the pronoun it.

• het onweer = the thunderstorm / the thunder and lightning (a neuter noun)
• Dutch has two definite articles:
  • de for common-gender nouns
  • het for neuter nouns

onweer is neuter, so it takes het.

If you wanted the pronoun it, you would normally also use het, but the position and context are different. Here, het onweer together is the subject noun phrase meaning the thunderstorm.

What exactly is onweer? Is it just thunder, or a full thunderstorm?

onweer is a general word for thundery weather: thunder plus lightning (and often rain). In English you’d usually translate it as a thunderstorm.

Compare:

• onweer – thunder + lightning, the whole phenomenon
• donder – thunder (the sound)
• bliksem – lightning (the flash)

So Het onweer barst plotseling los is most naturally The thunderstorm suddenly breaks out / erupts rather than The thunder suddenly breaks out.