Breakdown of Toch blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper, zelfs als alles mislukt.
Questions & Answers about Toch blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper, zelfs als alles mislukt.
“Toch” is a little discourse word that often means “yet / still / nevertheless / however”.
In this sentence:
- Toch blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper…
→ Yet / Still, her character remains calm and brave…
It links this sentence to some earlier, probably negative, information (e.g. “a lot of bad things happen, yet…”).
About the position:
- In Dutch main clauses, the finite verb is in second position (the V2 rule).
- If you start with “Toch”, then “blijft” must come next:
- Toch blijft haar karakter… ✔️
- Toch haar karakter blijft… ✖️ (incorrect word order)
So “Toch” is in first position to emphasize the contrast, and then “blijft” directly follows as the second element.
“Blijft” (from blijven) emphasizes that something stays in a certain state, especially despite circumstances.
- Haar karakter is rustig en dapper.
→ Her character is calm and brave. (a simple fact) - Haar karakter blijft rustig en dapper, zelfs als alles mislukt.
→ Her character stays/remains calm and brave, even if everything fails.
Using blijft shows continuity under pressure: she doesn’t just happen to be calm and brave; she remains that way even when things go wrong. That nuance is why blijft is more natural in this context than is.
Both are possible, but they have slightly different focuses:
- Toch blijft ze rustig en dapper…
→ Yet she remains calm and brave… - Toch blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper…
→ Yet her character remains calm and brave…
Using “haar karakter” puts the focus on her personality / character traits, not just her outward behavior at that moment. It subtly says:
“Her character itself is calm and brave, and it doesn’t change, even when everything fails.”
It sounds a bit more literary / reflective than just “she.”
In Dutch, adjectives get an -e ending in many situations (e.g. een rustig meisje, de dappere man), but not when they are used as predicative adjectives after a linking verb like zijn (to be), blijven (to remain), worden (to become), etc.
Here we have:
- blijft (linking verb) + rustig en dapper (predicative adjectives)
So:
- Haar karakter blijft rustig en dapper. ✔️
- Haar karakter blijft rustige en dappere. ✖️ (wrong in this structure)
Compare:
- Een rustig en dapper karakter → attributive → with -e
- Haar karakter is / blijft rustig en dapper → predicative → no -e
“Zelfs als” literally means “even if / even when”.
- …zelfs als alles mislukt.
→ …even if everything goes wrong / even when everything fails.
It adds emphasis: not only in normal situations, but even in extreme or bad ones.
You’ll see it a lot in this pattern:
- Zelfs als hij geen tijd heeft, helpt hij ons.
→ Even if he has no time, he helps us. - Zelfs als het regent, gaan we wandelen.
→ Even if it rains, we go for a walk.
Because “zelfs als alles mislukt” is a subordinate clause (a dependent clause) introduced by the conjunction als.
In Dutch:
- Main clause: Toch blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper,
- Subordinate clause: zelfs als alles mislukt.
It’s standard to separate a subordinate clause from the main clause with a comma, especially when it comes after the main clause like here.
Also, inside that subordinate clause, the verb mislukt goes to the end, which is typical for Dutch subordinate clauses:
- Als alles mislukt… (verb at the end) ✔️
- Als alles mislukt is, als alles goed gaat, etc.
Both mislukken and falen can relate to failure, but they’re used differently.
mislukken = to go wrong / to fail (usually events, plans, attempts).
- Het plan mislukt. → The plan falls through / fails.
- Alles mislukt. → Everything goes wrong / everything fails.
falen = to fail (often about people, or in a more abstract, sometimes formal sense).
- Hij heeft gefaald. → He has failed.
- Het systeem faalt. → The system fails.
In this sentence, “alles mislukt” sounds most natural: it suggests plans, attempts, situations going wrong.
“Alles faalt” is understood but sounds less idiomatic in everyday language and feels more abstract or technical.
“Haar” in Dutch can indeed mean both “her” and “hair”, but the grammar and context tell you which it is:
Possessive pronoun “haar” = her
- haar karakter → her character
- haar boek → her book
Noun “haar” = hair
- haar haar → her hair
- lang haar → long hair
In “haar karakter”, haar is clearly a possessive pronoun (it modifies a noun: karakter).
So here it can only mean “her”, not “hair.”
Yes, that is grammatically correct and quite natural:
- Toch blijft ze rustig en dapper, zelfs als alles mislukt.
The differences:
- “ze” = she → emphasizes the person.
- “haar karakter” = her character → emphasizes her inner qualities / personality.
In many contexts they’re interchangeable in meaning, but “haar karakter” sounds more descriptive / reflective, while “ze” is more neutral and everyday.
Yes, you can front the subordinate clause. The word order changes according to the verb-second (V2) rule in the main clause.
Original:
- Toch blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper, zelfs als alles mislukt.
Fronted subordinate clause:
- Zelfs als alles mislukt, blijft haar karakter toch rustig en dapper.
Notice:
In the subordinate clause:
- Zelfs als alles mislukt → mislukt is still at the end. ✔️
In the main clause (after the comma):
- blijft is in second position:
- [blijft] [haar karakter] [toch] [rustig en dapper]
- blijft is in second position:
You can also move “toch”:
- Zelfs als alles mislukt, blijft haar karakter rustig en dapper.
- Zelfs als alles mislukt, blijft haar karakter toch rustig en dapper.
Both are acceptable; “toch” just adds an extra “yet / still” emphasis.