Learn Hardcore Dutch: Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.

wij = stressed / emphatic form
- Used when you want to emphasize we (and not someone else).
- Example: Wij brengen het eten, niet zij.
we = unstressed / neutral form
- Most common in everyday speech: We brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.

In your sentence, both are grammatically correct:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden. (slightly more emphasis on “we”)
We brengen het eten naar onze vrienden. (more natural in neutral speech)

So the difference is about emphasis and style, not grammar or meaning.

Why is it het eten and not just eten?

Eten can be both a verb (“to eat”) and a noun (“food”).

As a noun, eten is a het‑word: het eten = the food.
Without the article, eten is more like “food” in general or the verb “eating”.

Compare:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.
→ We bring the food (a specific meal, e.g. tonight’s dinner).
Eten is belangrijk.
→ Food is important. / Eating is important. (general idea)
Wij gaan eten.
→ We are going to eat. (verb)

So het is used here because we are talking about specific food (the meal we are bringing).

Why is the verb brengen used here and not something like nemen?

Dutch brengen is “to bring”: to move something to a place where someone else is.

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.
→ We take the food to our friends (from our point of view, we’re bringing it to them).

Nemen is “to take (with you)” and is focused more on taking along with you, often away from somewhere.

Very roughly:

brengen = bring to someone/somewhere
nemen / meenemen = take (along) with you

Examples:

Ik breng het boek naar de bibliotheek.
I bring the book to the library.
Ik neem het boek mee naar de bibliotheek.
I take the book with me to the library.

In your sentence we care about delivering the food to our friends, so brengen is the natural choice.

Why does naar onze vrienden come at the end of the sentence?

Dutch main sentences usually follow this basic order:

Subject – Verb – (Direct Object) – (Other information)

Your sentence:

Wij (subject)
brengen (verb)
het eten (direct object)
naar onze vrienden (prepositional phrase: destination)

So the pattern is:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.

This is the most natural order:

Who? → Wij
Do what? → brengen
What? → het eten (direct object)
To where / to whom? → naar onze vrienden (destination)

You can move parts for emphasis, but then it sounds marked or poetic:

Naar onze vrienden brengen wij het eten. (emphasis on naar onze vrienden)

Wij brengen naar onze vrienden het eten is grammatically possible but feels awkward and unnatural in normal speech.

Why is it naar onze vrienden, and not aan, bij, or another preposition?

The choice of preposition depends on the relationship between the verb and the phrase.

naar is used for movement towards a destination:
- naar onze vrienden = to(wards) our friends (we go in their direction)
- fits well with brengen (bring something to a place/person)

Other options:

aan: often used with verbs of giving:
- Wij geven het eten aan onze vrienden. (We give the food to our friends.)
- With brengen, aan sounds formal and unusual; naar is normal.
bij: means at / with (located at someone’s place), not towards:
- Het eten is bij onze vrienden. (The food is at our friends’ house.)
- Not used to express movement towards them.
tot is rarely used for people and wouldn’t work here.

So with brengen (a movement verb), naar is the natural preposition.

Why is it onze vrienden and not ons vrienden?

Dutch has two forms for “our”:

ons
onze

Which one you use depends on the gender/number of the noun:

Singular het-word → ons
- het huis → ons huis (our house)
- het kind → ons kind
All de-words (singular) and all plurals → onze
- de vriend → onze vriend (our friend)
- de tafel → onze tafel
- de vrienden (plural) → onze vrienden

Vrienden is plural, so the correct form is onze vrienden.
Ons vrienden is always wrong.

Why is it vrienden and not just vriend? How does the plural work here?

vriend = friend (singular)
vrienden = friends (plural)

You use vrienden because the meaning is “our friends” (more than one friend).

Plural of vriend is regular:

singular: vriend
plural: vrienden

Examples:

Mijn vriend woont in Amsterdam.
My (one) friend lives in Amsterdam.
Mijn vrienden wonen in Amsterdam.
My friends live in Amsterdam.
Wij brengen het eten naar onze vriend.
We bring the food to our (one) friend.
Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.
We bring the food to our friends.

Could I say Wij brengen naar onze vrienden het eten instead?

You can, but it sounds unnatural in normal Dutch.

The usual, neutral order is:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.

In Dutch, the direct object (here: het eten) normally comes before prepositional phrases like naar onze vrienden.

You can move things for emphasis:

Naar onze vrienden brengen wij het eten. (emphasis on “to our friends”)
Het eten brengen wij naar onze vrienden. (emphasis on “the food”)

But Wij brengen naar onze vrienden het eten is not typical everyday word order and will sound odd to native speakers.

Can I replace naar onze vrienden with a pronoun, like “to them”? How would that work in Dutch?

Yes. You can replace naar onze vrienden with a pronoun meaning “to them”.

The standard object pronoun after a preposition is hen:

Wij brengen het eten naar hen.
We bring the food to them.

In spoken Dutch, many people also say:

Wij brengen het eten naar ze. (informal, common in speech)

About hun:

hun is normally used without a preposition as an indirect object:
- Wij geven hun het eten. (We give them the food.) – prescriptive grammar prefers hen here, but hun is very common in speech.
After a preposition, standard Dutch is naar hen, not naar hun, though you will hear naar hun in informal speech.

So the safest, most correct option in writing is:

Wij brengen het eten naar hen.

In some languages you can drop the subject pronoun. Can you leave out wij here?

In Dutch, you normally do not drop subject pronouns. They are usually required.

So you should say:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.
or, more commonly: We brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.

You cannot normally say:

∅ Brengen het eten naar onze vrienden. ✗

The main exceptions are:

Imperatives:
- Breng het eten naar onze vrienden! (Bring the food to our friends!)
Very elliptical spoken fragments:
- (Wie brengt het eten?) – Ik. (Who brings the food? – I do.)

But as a full normal sentence, the subject pronoun (wij/we) must be present.

What tense is brengen here, and how would past and future look?

In your sentence, brengen is in the present tense:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.
= We bring / We are bringing the food to our friends.

Other common forms:

Past simple (imperfect):

Wij brachten het eten naar onze vrienden.
We brought the food to our friends.

Present perfect:

Wij hebben het eten naar onze vrienden gebracht.
We have brought / We brought the food to our friends.

Future:

Wij zullen het eten naar onze vrienden brengen.
We will bring the food to our friends.

The past participle of brengen is gebracht (irregular).

How do you pronounce the words in this sentence?

Approximate pronunciation (IPA + rough English hints):

Wij → /ʋɛi̯/
- Like English “way” but starting with a soft w/v sound.
brengen → /ˈbrɛŋən/
- bre like “bre” in “bread”;
- ng as in “sing”;
- final -en often sounds like a weak -un or almost just -n.
het → /ɦɛt/ or /ət/ (unstressed)
- Short e like in “pet”.
eten → /ˈeːtən/
- ee is a long vowel, like the “ay” in “day” but held a bit longer;
- -en again weak.
naar → /naːr/
- Long aa like “a” in “father”.
onze → /ˈɔnzə/
- on like in British “on”; z as in “zoo”; final e is a weak “uh”.
vrienden → /ˈvrindən/
- vr cluster at the start;
- ie like “ee” in “see”;
- final -en weak again.

Spoken naturally, the whole sentence flows as:

Wij brengen het eten naar onze vrienden.
/ʋɛi̯ ˈbrɛŋən ət ˈeːtən naːr ˈɔnzə ˈvrindən/