De trein is vertraagd, maar hij komt straks aan.

Trein is a de-word in Dutch, so the correct article is de: de trein.

Unfortunately, whether a noun takes de or het often just has to be learned. There are some patterns in Dutch, but for a word like trein, the safest approach is simply to memorize it as de trein.

Because it is a de-word, you will often also see it referred to later with hij.

Vertraagd means delayed.

So:

• De trein is vertraagd = The train is delayed
• De trein is te laat = The train is late

These are close in meaning, but not identical:

• vertraagd focuses on a delay in the schedule or service
• te laat is a more general expression meaning something is late

For trains, announcements often use vertraging or vertraagd, because that is the standard travel-related wording.

In this sentence, is vertraagd describes the train’s current state: it is delayed.

Dutch often uses zijn + past participle in a way that corresponds to English is delayed, is closed, is broken, etc.

Here:

• is = is
• vertraagd = past participle of vertragen (to delay)

So De trein is vertraagd literally looks like The train is delayed.

You may also hear:

• De trein heeft vertraging = The train has a delay / is delayed

That is another very common way to say the same thing.

In Dutch, nouns can be referred to with pronouns based on grammatical gender, not only natural gender.

Because trein is a de-word, it can be referred to as hij.

So:

• de trein → hij

That can feel strange to English speakers, because English normally uses it for things. Dutch does use het as a pronoun sometimes, but with many de-words, especially in more careful or traditional standard Dutch, hij is possible and normal.

In everyday speech, many Dutch speakers also avoid this a bit by repeating the noun or using forms like die in some contexts.

This is because aankomen (to arrive) is a separable verb.

The full infinitive is:

• aankomen = to arrive

But in a main clause, Dutch usually splits separable verbs:

• komen goes in the normal verb position
• aan moves to the end

So:

• Hij komt straks aan = He arrives soon / He’ll arrive shortly

Compare:

• Hij komt aan.
• De trein komt straks aan.

But in an infinitive or subordinate clause, it stays together:

• De trein zal straks aankomen.
• Ik denk dat de trein straks aankomt.

Dutch main clauses follow the verb-second rule, often called V2.

That means the finite verb usually comes in the second position of the clause.

In:

• maar hij komt straks aan

the order is:

1. hij
2. komt
3. straks
4. aan

So komt has to come very early in the clause.

English speakers often want to say something more like hij straks komt aan, but that is not correct in a normal main clause.

Straks usually means soon, shortly, or a little later.

In this sentence:

• hij komt straks aan = it will arrive shortly / soon

A useful thing to know is that straks is a bit flexible. Depending on context, it can mean:

• in a little while
• later on
• soon

It often refers to a time that is not right now, but not very far away either.

So it does not always mean the exact same thing as English right away. It is more like in a bit or later soon.

Maar means but.

It connects two ideas that contrast with each other:

• De trein is vertraagd = the train is delayed
• maar hij komt straks aan = but it will arrive soon

So the contrast is:

• bad news: there is a delay
• reassuring news: it is still arriving shortly

This is very similar to English but.

Dutch normally uses a comma before coordinating conjunctions like maar when they join two full clauses.

Here, both parts could stand as clauses:

• De trein is vertraagd
• hij komt straks aan

Because maar links them, the comma is standard punctuation:

• De trein is vertraagd, maar hij komt straks aan.

This works much like English punctuation before but.

Yes. That is extremely common.

Compare:

• De trein is vertraagd.
• De trein heeft vertraging.

Both mean that the train is delayed.

There is a slight difference in how they are built:

• is vertraagd = is delayed
• heeft vertraging = has delay / has a delay

In practice, both are natural. In travel announcements, vertraging is especially common:

• De trein heeft vijf minuten vertraging. = The train is delayed by five minutes.

No. Although aan often has meanings like on, at, or to in other contexts, in aankomen the whole verb means to arrive.

So:

• hij komt aan = it arrives / it is arriving
• not it comes on

This is a good example of why separable verbs should usually be learned as whole vocabulary items:

• aankomen = to arrive
• opstaan = to get up
• meekomen = to come along

Even if the pieces are familiar, the full meaning is not always predictable from English.