Learn Hardcore Dutch: Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt in een grote kom. - Our daughter puts breakfast cereal into her yogurt in a big bowl.

onze is used with:
- all plural nouns: onze kinderen (our children)
- all singular de‑words: onze dochter, onze tafel
ons is used with:
- singular het‑words: ons huis, ons kind

Dochter is a de‑word (de dochter), singular, so it takes onze, not ons.

Why is doet used here? In English we would say “puts”, not “does”.

Dutch uses doen much more broadly than English uses do. One common pattern is:

iemand doet X in Y
someone puts X into Y

So you can say:

Ze doet suiker in haar koffie. – She puts sugar in her coffee.
Ik doe mijn sleutels in mijn tas. – I put my keys in my bag.

In this sentence:

Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt…
literally: Our daughter does cereal in her yoghurt…
idiomatically: Our daughter puts cereal in her yoghurt…

You could also use more specific verbs like doet … in vs gooit … in (throws in), strooit … over (sprinkles over), but doen is the neutral, everyday verb for “putting something somewhere” with a preposition like in.

What exactly is ontbijtgranen? Is it singular or plural?

Ontbijtgranen literally means breakfast grains and is the normal general word for (breakfast) cereal.

Grammatically:

It looks plural (ends in -en) and takes plural agreement:
- De ontbijtgranen zijn op. – The cereal is finished.

In meaning:

It often behaves like an uncountable mass noun in English:
- Ik eet veel ontbijtgranen. – I eat a lot of cereal.

So you treat ontbijtgranen as plural grammatically, but conceptually it can refer to “cereal” in general.

Why is it in haar yoghurt and not something like op haar yoghurt?

Dutch uses in for something mixed into or inside another substance:

suiker in de koffie – sugar in the coffee
chocola in de melk – chocolate in the milk
fruit in de yoghurt – fruit in the yoghurt

Op would mean on top of:

slagroom op de taart – cream on the cake
kaas op het brood – cheese on the bread

Because the idea here is that the cereal goes into the yoghurt, in haar yoghurt is the natural choice. If you really wanted to emphasize “on top of” you might say op de yoghurt, but that sounds less natural with something that usually mixes into it.

Why is haar used? Does it refer back to onze dochter?

Yes. Haar here means her and refers back to onze dochter.

Onze dochter – our daughter (female person)
haar yoghurt – her yoghurt

Some additional points:

haar can mean her (possessive) or hair (as a noun), but context makes the meaning clear.
Dutch traditionally sometimes used zijn generically (“his”) for any gender, but in modern standard language, for a female person you normally use haar for “her”.

So the sentence clearly means that the yoghurt belongs to the daughter.

Why is it een grote kom and not een groot kom?

This is about adjective endings.

In Dutch, an adjective before a noun normally gets ‑e:

de grote kom – the big bowl
de rode auto – the red car
de nieuwe jas – the new coat

With een, the rule is:

If the noun is a de‑word or a plural, the adjective also gets ‑e:
- een grote kom (de kom → de‑word)
- een rode auto
- grote kommen
If the noun is a singular het‑word, then:
- without an adjective: een huis
- with an adjective: een groot huis (no ‑e)

Since kom is a de‑word (de kom), you must say een grote kom, not een groot kom.

Is kom a de‑word or a het‑word, and how do I know?

Kom is a de‑word:

de kom – the bowl
de grote kom – the big bowl

There is no fully reliable rule to deduce gender from the form of the word; you mostly have to learn the gender with the noun, e.g.:

de kom, de tafel, de stoel
het bord, het mes, het glas

Dictionaries usually mark this clearly: de kom (de).

Why is in een grote kom at the end? Could I say Onze dochter doet in een grote kom ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt?

Both word orders are grammatically possible, but they don’t sound equally natural.

In the original:

Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt in een grote kom.

Here, ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt forms a tight unit: it says what exactly she is doing. In een grote kom is more like extra information about the place/container, so it naturally comes at the end.

If you say:

Onze dochter doet in een grote kom ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt.

this is grammatically fine but sounds a bit clumsy or heavy to many native speakers, because in een grote kom interrupts the more closely linked part ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt.

Natural alternatives with a comma or different emphasis:

Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt, in een grote kom.
In een grote kom doet onze dochter ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt. (emphasis on the bowl)

So the original order follows the tendency to keep closely related elements together and place more “extra” information to the end.

Why is the preposition in used twice? Is that normal?

Yes, this is completely normal and natural. The two in phrases describe two different relationships:

ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt – cereal goes into the yoghurt (mixture)
(yoghurt-with-cereal) in een grote kom – the whole mixture is in a big bowl (container/location)

Dutch doesn’t try to avoid repeating in here. Each in belongs to its own noun phrase, and repeating it keeps the structure clear. Trying to avoid the repetition would usually make the sentence less clear, not better.

Could I say Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in een grote kom yoghurt instead? What would that mean?

You can say:

Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in een grote kom yoghurt.

But the focus is slightly different:

Original: … ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt in een grote kom.
Emphasis: cereal goes in her yoghurt, which happens to be in a big bowl.
Alternative: … ontbijtgranen in een grote kom yoghurt.
Emphasis: cereal goes into a big bowl of yoghurt (the whole phrase een grote kom yoghurt is the “target”).

In many everyday contexts they will be understood in almost the same way, but:

haar yoghurt stresses ownership (her yoghurt).
een grote kom yoghurt sounds more like any big bowl of yoghurt, not necessarily clearly hers, unless context already makes that obvious.

Can I leave out haar and just say in yoghurt?

Yes, grammatically you can say:

Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in yoghurt in een grote kom.

This just means:

Our daughter puts cereal in yoghurt in a big bowl.

You lose the information that the yoghurt is specifically hers. Whether that is okay depends on context:

If it is obvious you are talking about her own breakfast, many speakers might still assume it’s her yoghurt, even without haar.
If you want to be explicit (for example contrasting with someone else’s yoghurt), you should keep haar yoghurt.

Where would the verb go if this was part of a longer sentence, like a subordinate clause?

In a main clause, Dutch is verb‑second, so we have:

Onze dochter doet ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt in een grote kom.

In a subordinate clause (introduced by dat, omdat, als, etc.), the personal verb goes to the end:

Ik zie dat onze dochter ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt in een grote kom doet.
– I see that our daughter puts cereal in her yoghurt in a big bowl.

Here, doet moves to the very end of the clause:

[dat] onze dochter ontbijtgranen in haar yoghurt in een grote kom doet.

All the other elements keep essentially the same order as in the main clause; only the finite verb shifts to the end in subordinate clauses.

Are there other common words for ontbijtgranen in Dutch?

Yes, depending on the type of cereal, Dutch speakers also use:

muesli – muesli (often the “healthier” style with grains, nuts, dried fruit)
cornflakes – cornflakes specifically
cruesli – a brand name that’s also used generically for crunchy granola‑type cereals

For general “breakfast cereal” without specifying the type, ontbijtgranen is the neutral catch‑all word.