De voetganger keek niet naar links, maar de buschauffeur wachtte gelukkig even.

Because kijken has an irregular past tense: keek.

• infinitive: kijken = to look
• present: ik kijk, hij kijkt
• past: ik keek, hij keek
• past participle: gekeken

So in this sentence, De voetganger keek means The pedestrian looked.

Dutch uses naar after verbs like kijken when you look toward / at something.

• kijken naar = to look at
• naar links = to the left
• naar rechts = to the right

So keek niet naar links literally means did not look to the left.

Because links here is not a noun meaning the left. It is being used adverbially, as a direction.

So:

• naar links = to the left
• naar rechts = to the right

You do not normally add de or het in this expression.

In a main clause, the finite verb usually comes early, and niet often comes after it and before the part being negated.

Here, niet negates the action of looking left:

• De voetganger keek niet naar links.

This is the normal word order. Dutch often places niet after the verb and before prepositional phrases like naar links.

Maar means but.

It connects two contrasting ideas:

• the pedestrian did not look left
• but the bus driver luckily waited a moment

So maar shows contrast between the two parts of the sentence.

Dutch normally writes compound nouns as one word.

So:

• bus
  • chauffeur = buschauffeur

This is very common in Dutch:

• treinstation = train station
• huisdeur = house door / front door
• voetganger = pedestrian, literally something like foot-goer

English often uses spaces where Dutch uses one long compound word.

Here gelukkig means luckily or fortunately.

It comments on the whole situation, not just on the verb wachtte.

So:

• de buschauffeur wachtte gelukkig even = luckily, the bus driver waited a moment

It is a sentence adverb, expressing the speaker’s attitude.

Because gelukkig is a sentence adverb, and even belongs more closely to the verb wachtte.

So the order is natural:

• wachtte gelukkig even

This is roughly:

• waited, luckily, for a moment

Dutch often places broader comment words like gelukkig before smaller adverbial elements like even.

No, not in the English sense of even meaning also / unexpectedly.

In Dutch, even often means:

• for a moment
• briefly
• sometimes it softens the sentence a little

Here, wachtte even means waited a moment or waited briefly.

This is a very common Dutch word, and its meaning depends a lot on context.

Because the verb is wachten, and its stem is wacht-.

For the simple past of a regular verb, Dutch adds -te or -de. Since the stem ends in a consonant from the ’t kofschip group, it takes -te:

• infinitive: wachten
• stem: wacht
• past singular: wachtte
• past plural: wachtten

The double tt happens because the stem already ends in t, and then the past ending -te is added.

Because voetganger and buschauffeur are de-words.

People and professions are very often de-words in Dutch:

• de voetganger
• de chauffeur
• de buschauffeur
• de leraar
• de dokter

So de is just the correct definite article for these nouns.

Yes. Both verbs are in the simple past:

• keek = looked
• wachtte = waited

So the sentence describes a completed situation in the past.

Yes, a little, but the verb still follows the Dutch V2 rule in a main clause: the finite verb usually stays in second position.

For example, you could also say:

• Gelukkig wachtte de buschauffeur even.

That puts more focus on gelukkig.

But in the original sentence, the order is very natural because it first names the subject and then gives the action:

• de buschauffeur wachtte gelukkig even

Because maar connects two main clauses here:

• De voetganger keek niet naar links
• de buschauffeur wachtte gelukkig even

When two full clauses are joined by maar, a comma is standard and helps show the contrast clearly.