Breakdown of Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau.
Questions & Answers about Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau.
The verb is leggen (to lay / to put something down). Dutch present tense conjugation:
- ik leg – I lay / I put
- jij/u legt – you lay / you put
- hij/zij/het legt – he/she/it lays / puts
- wij leggen – we lay / put
- jullie leggen – you (plural) lay / put
- zij leggen – they lay / put
In Dutch, the ik form usually drops the final -en, so leggen → leg.
So Ik leg is simply I lay / I put.
Leggen is the infinitive (to lay), and legt is the you/he/she/it form.
Both can translate as to put, but there is a nuance:
- leggen – to lay something down flat (on its side or lying).
- zetten – to set something upright (standing).
With a bril (pair of glasses), speakers often imagine it lying flat, so leggen is natural:
- Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau. – I put my glasses (lying flat) on the desk.
In everyday speech, many people also say:
- Ik zet mijn bril op het bureau.
That’s not wrong in colloquial Dutch, but leggen fits the traditional flat-vs-upright distinction better.
Dutch treats a pair of glasses as one object:
- de bril – the pair of glasses
- mijn bril – my glasses
- een bril – a pair of glasses
Plural brillen exists, but it means multiple pairs:
- Ik heb drie brillen. – I have three pairs of glasses.
So Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau. literally: I lay my pair-of-glasses on the desk, which we translate naturally as my glasses.
The preposition depends on the spatial relationship:
- op – on (top of) a surface
- op het bureau – on the desk (on its top surface)
- in – in / inside
- in het bureau – inside the desk (e.g. in a drawer)
- aan – connected to or at the side of something
- aan het bureau zitten – to sit at the desk
You are putting the glasses on top of the desk, so op het bureau is correct.
Every Dutch noun has a grammatical gender: de-words or het-words.
- bureau (desk) is a het-word: het bureau.
- Plural is de bureaus (all plurals take de).
Unfortunately, you mostly have to memorize whether a noun is de or het. There are patterns, but bureau is just one to learn as het bureau.
It can mean both, depending on context:
Physical piece of furniture – desk
- Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau. – on the desk.
Organization / office (company, government office, agency)
- Een reisbureau – a travel agency
- Het bureau van de burgemeester – the mayor’s office (as an organization)
In your sentence, because something is physically on it, it clearly means desk.
Yes, the sentence is grammatically fine:
- Ik leg de bril op het bureau.
However, the meaning changes slightly:
- mijn bril – specifically my glasses.
- de bril – the glasses (some specific pair known from context, not necessarily mine).
In everyday speech, if you mean your own glasses, mijn bril is the most natural.
No. Dutch is not a “pro-drop” language. You must include the subject pronoun in normal sentences:
- ✅ Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau.
- ❌ Leg mijn bril op het bureau. – This sounds like an imperative (a command: Put my glasses on the desk.), not a normal statement.
For a regular statement meaning I put my glasses on the desk, you always keep ik.
The main rule for Dutch main clauses:
- The finite verb (here: leg) is in second position.
In your sentence:
- Ik – first element (subject)
- leg – verb in second position
- mijn bril op het bureau – rest of the sentence
So you cannot move words in front of leg without changing the structure. For example:
- ❌ Ik op het bureau mijn bril leg. – incorrect word order.
- ✅ Morgen leg ik mijn bril op het bureau.
Here, Morgen is first, so leg still comes second, followed by ik.
The verb leggen is a regular weak verb. Past tense:
- ik/jij/hij legde
- wij/jullie/zij legden
So:
- Ik leg mijn bril op het bureau. – I put / am putting my glasses on the desk.
- Ik legde mijn bril op het bureau. – I put my glasses on the desk. (past)
Everything else in the sentence (mijn bril op het bureau) stays the same.