Breakdown of Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis, zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
Questions & Answers about Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis, zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
Werkt liever literally means “works rather / would rather work / prefers to work.”
- werken = to work
- graag = gladly / with pleasure (used to say you like doing something)
- liever = more gladly / rather (comparative of graag)
You use graag and liever directly with a verb:
- Sofie werkt graag met een extern toetsenbord.
= Sofie likes working with an external keyboard. - Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord.
= Sofie prefers working / would rather work with an external keyboard.
So liever doesn’t translate as a separate word like “more gladly” in normal English; it changes the meaning of the verb to “prefer / rather.”
Both relate to preference, but:
- liever = rather / would rather / prefers (comparative)
- het liefst = most of all / likes best (superlative)
Examples:
Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord.
= She prefers working with an external keyboard (compared to something else, e.g. laptop keyboard).Sofie werkt het liefst met een extern toetsenbord.
= She likes working with an external keyboard best of all (this is her top choice among many options).
In your sentence, liever implies a comparison, often to the laptop’s built‑in keyboard and trackpad, even if that is not mentioned explicitly.
In Dutch, when two nouns share the same article and belong together naturally, it is quite common to omit the second article:
- met een extern toetsenbord en muis
(literally: with an external keyboard and mouse)
You can also say:
- met een extern toetsenbord en een muis
Both are grammatically correct. The shorter version sounds a bit more compact and natural in everyday language, because “toetsenbord en muis” is a fixed pair, just like “knife and fork” in English.
Note: If you really wanted to stress something about the mouse separately, you’d be more likely to repeat the article and possibly the adjective:
- met een extern toetsenbord en een draadloze muis
This is about adjective endings in Dutch.
- toetsenbord is a het-word: het toetsenbord.
- With een
- a het-word, the adjective does not get an -e ending.
So:
- het externe toetsenbord (definite: the external keyboard)
- een extern toetsenbord (indefinite: an external keyboard)
General rule for attributive adjectives (adjective before a noun):
De-words (common gender):
- de mooie tafel
- een mooie tafel
→ always mooie
Het-words (neuter):
- het mooie huis
- een mooi huis (no -e)
So extern without -e is correct here because it’s een + het-word.
It could be phrased in several ways:
met een extern toetsenbord en muis (original sentence)
→ implies both are external; natural and compact.met een extern toetsenbord en een externe muis
→ fully explicit, both clearly described as “external”; also correct.met een extern toetsenbord en een muis
→ stresses the keyboard as external; the mouse is just “a mouse” (could be internal/trackpad, but in practice people would still understand “separate mouse”).
The original version relies on context: if you’re talking about external peripherals, listeners will automatically understand both keyboard and mouse are external, even though only toetsenbord actually carries the adjective.
Yes, you can say:
- …, zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
- …, zodat ze rechtop kan zitten.
Both are grammatically correct.
Difference:
- zij (stressed form) – used for emphasis or in more formal / careful speech.
- ze (unstressed form) – more common in everyday speech.
Using zij gives a little more weight to “she”:
- … zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
→ “…so that she can sit upright.” (slight emphasis on she.)
But in many contexts, there is no big difference in meaning, just style. Ze would sound a bit more colloquial.
Zodat introduces a subordinate clause (a dependent clause), just like “because,” “although,” or “so that” in English.
Dutch spelling rules:
- Put a comma before most subordinate clauses that follow the main clause.
In your sentence:
- Main clause: Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis,
- Subordinate clause: zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
So the comma clearly marks where the main statement stops and the “so that…” explanation begins. Writing it without the comma is generally seen as incorrect or at least poor style.
Zodat expresses purpose or intended result, roughly “so that / in order that / so.”
- Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis, zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
→ She prefers using them in order to be able to sit upright.
Compare:
omdat = because (reason / cause)
Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis, omdat zij dan rechtop kan zitten.
→ She prefers it because she can sit upright that way.dus = so / therefore (logical consequence in a new main clause)
Sofie wil rechtop zitten, dus zij werkt met een extern toetsenbord en muis.
→ She wants to sit upright, so she works with an external keyboard and mouse.
So:
- zodat = purpose/result inside one sentence (subordinate clause)
- omdat = reason
- dus = consequence in a separate main clause
In Dutch subordinate clauses, the finite verb(s) go to the end.
Here we have:
- kan = modal verb (finite, conjugated)
- zitten = main verb (infinitive)
In a subordinate clause like this one:
- Subject near the start:
- zij
- Other elements (adverbs, objects, etc.):
- rechtop
- All verbs at the end, with the non-finite (infinitive/participle) usually last:
- kan zitten
So the correct order is:
- … zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
… zodat zij kan rechtop zitten would sound foreign / incorrect to Dutch ears.
Rechtop zitten is not a separable verb; it is:
- zitten = to sit
- rechtop = upright (here, an adverb describing how she sits)
So rechtop functions like “upright” or “up straight” in English:
- Sofie zit rechtop.
= Sofie sits upright.
In verb clusters:
- zij kan rechtop zitten
(main clause: verb second) - …, zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
(subordinate clause: verbs at the end)
You can insert other words between rechtop and zitten if needed, so it’s not a fixed, inseparable verb; it’s just a verb + adverb combination.
Both are possible, but they have slightly different nuances.
Met “kan”:
… zodat zij rechtop kan zitten.
→ “…so that she can sit upright.”- Focus on possibility / ability: using the external keyboard and mouse makes it possible for her to sit upright.
Without “kan”:
… zodat zij rechtop zit.
→ “…so that she sits upright.”- More like a resulting state: she ends up sitting upright; the idea of “being able to” is weaker.
In context of ergonomics and posture, “kan zitten” is very natural, because using external devices is what enables her to sit upright comfortably.
Dutch main clauses follow the Verb Second (V2) rule:
- The conjugated verb (here werkt) must be in second position in the clause.
Word order:
- First position: subject (or another element)
- Sofie
- Second position: finite verb
- werkt
- Rest of the sentence:
- liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis
So:
- Sofie werkt liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis. ✅
- Sofie liever werkt met een extern toetsenbord en muis. ❌ (ungrammatical)
If you move another element to the front, the verb still stays in second position:
- Met een extern toetsenbord en muis werkt Sofie liever. ✅
(“With an external keyboard and mouse, Sofie prefers to work.”)
Yes, that is grammatically correct:
- Zodat zij rechtop kan zitten, werkt Sofie liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis.
Here’s what happens:
- You place the subordinate clause first:
- Zodat zij rechtop kan zitten,
- Then you start the main clause:
- werkt Sofie liever met een extern toetsenbord en muis.
The main clause still follows the Verb Second (V2) rule: werkt (finite verb) is in second position of the main clause (after the initial clause chunk).
This version sounds slightly more formal or stylistically marked, but it is fine Dutch.