De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park.

The son of my female neighbor bikes in the park.

Breakdown of De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park.

• in: in
• het park: the park
• mijn: my
• fietsen: to bike
• van: of
• de buurvrouw: the (female) neighbor
• de zoon: the son

Questions & Answers about De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park.

Why does the sentence use de with zoon but het with park?

Dutch has two grammatical genders for nouns:

• de-words (common gender)
• het-words (neuter)

The definite article must match the noun’s gender:

• de zoon – zoon (son) is a de-word
• het park – park (park) is a het-word

There is no simple rule that lets you always predict which nouns are de and which are het; you mostly have to learn them together with the noun.

The indefinite article een is the same for both: een zoon, een park.

Why is possession expressed as de zoon van mijn buurvrouw instead of something like mijn buurvrouws zoon?

Dutch normally expresses possession with van + possessor, not with an 's on the end of the possessor like English:

• de zoon van mijn buurvrouw = the son of my neighbour / my neighbour’s son

A form that looks like English 's does exist in Dutch, but it’s:

1. Mostly used with proper names:
   
   • Peters fiets (Peter’s bike)
2. Sometimes with short nouns in very informal speech, but it’s much less general than English 's and often sounds marked or odd.

With a phrase like mijn buurvrouw, you would not normally say mijn buurvrouws zoon.
Standard Dutch is: de zoon van mijn buurvrouw.

What exactly does buurvrouw mean, and is there a male equivalent?

buurvrouw is a compound word:

• buur = neighbour
• vrouw = woman

Literally: female neighbour.

Related forms:

• buurman = male neighbour (buur + man)
• buur on its own can mean “neighbour” in some contexts (often somewhat informal/old-fashioned) or appear in compounds like buurt (neighbourhood).

So:

• mijn buurvrouw = my (female) neighbour
• mijn buurman = my (male) neighbour

The sentence specifies a female neighbour by using buurvrouw.

What is the infinitive of fietst, and how is this verb conjugated?

The infinitive is fietsen (to cycle / to ride a bicycle).

In the present tense:

• ik fiets – I cycle
• jij / je fietst – you cycle (singular, informal, when it follows the pronoun)
• hij / zij / het fietst – he / she / it cycles
• wij / we fietsen – we cycle
• jullie fietsen – you (plural) cycle
• zij / ze fietsen – they cycle

In De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park, the subject is de zoon, which is third person singular, so you use fietst.

Why does the verb fietst come after the whole phrase De zoon van mijn buurvrouw and not directly after zoon?

Dutch main clauses follow the verb-second (V2) rule:

• The finite verb (here: fietst) must appear in second position in the clause.
• The first position is taken by one entire chunk (one phrase), not just one word.

In this sentence:

1. First position: the full subject phrase
   De zoon van mijn buurvrouw
2. Second position: the verb
   fietst
3. Rest of the sentence:
   in het park

So the order is:
[Subject phrase] [finite verb] [rest]
De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park.

You don’t split de zoon van mijn buurvrouw in the middle; it acts as one unit in first position.

Could the sentence also be In het park fietst de zoon van mijn buurvrouw? If yes, what changes?

Yes, that is also correct:

• In het park fietst de zoon van mijn buurvrouw.

Here, the first position is taken by the prepositional phrase In het park, so the verb fietst must still come second. The subject moves after the verb:

• [In het park] [fietst] [de zoon van mijn buurvrouw].

Meaning-wise, it’s almost the same, but the focus changes slightly:

• De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park.
  → neutral; about the son, and what he is doing / where.
• In het park fietst de zoon van mijn buurvrouw.
  → draws more attention to the location; for example, contrasting with somewhere else.

Why do we use in het park and not something like naar het park?

Different prepositions express different spatial relations:

• in het park = inside / within the park
  → He is currently cycling in the park.
• naar het park = to the park (direction)
  → He is going (moving) to the park, but not necessarily inside it yet.

The original sentence describes where he is cycling, not where he’s going, so in het park is correct.

Why is it mijn buurvrouw and not mij buurvrouw or me buurvrouw?

Dutch distinguishes between:

• Subject pronoun: ik (I)
• Object pronoun: mij / me (me)
• Possessive adjective: mijn (my)

When you modify a noun to show possession, you need the possessive adjective:

• mijn buurvrouw – my neighbour
• mijn fiets – my bike

mij and me cannot be used directly before a noun like that:

• ✗ mij buurvrouw
• ✗ me buurvrouw

So mijn buurvrouw is the correct form.

Can you drop the article and say just in park in Dutch, like in some languages?

No, not in standard Dutch with a concrete, countable singular noun like park.

You normally need the article:

• in het park – in the park

Leaving it out (✗ in park) is ungrammatical in normal Dutch.
Dropping the article is only possible in certain fixed expressions or with some abstract/uncountable nouns (e.g. op school = at school), but park is not one of those in this context.

How would the sentence change for plural: The sons of my neighbours cycle in the park?

You would pluralize both zoon and buurvrouw:

• De zonen van mijn buurvrouwen fietsen in het park.

Changes:

• zoon → zonen (sons)
• buurvrouw → buurvrouwen (female neighbours)
• fietst → fietsen (verb agrees with plural subject zonen)

So:

• Singular: De zoon van mijn buurvrouw fietst in het park.
• Plural: De zonen van mijn buurvrouwen fietsen in het park.