De theelepel lag nog op de snijplank, dus ik borg beide meteen op.

Dutch often uses a position verb where English would just use to be.

Here, liggen means to lie and is commonly used for things that are resting somewhere, especially flat or horizontal objects. A teaspoon on a cutting board is imagined as lying there, so:

• De theelepel lag op de snijplank = The teaspoon was lying on the cutting board

Using was would be much less natural in Dutch here. Dutch prefers verbs like:

• liggen for things lying flat
• staan for things standing upright
• zitten for things being located/fixed/in something

So lag is the normal past-tense choice.

Here nog means still.

So:

• De theelepel lag nog op de snijplank = The teaspoon was still on the cutting board

It suggests that the spoon had not been put away yet, and perhaps the speaker noticed that and then acted on it.

Common meanings of nog include:

• still: Ik wacht nog = I’m still waiting
• yet / another / more, depending on context

In this sentence, still is the best fit.

This is the separable verb opbergen, which means to put away, to store, or to tidy away.

So:

• ik borg ... op = I put ... away

The base verb is:

• opbergen = to put away

In a main clause, separable verbs split:

• Ik berg het op = I put it away
• Ik borg het op = I put it away / I was putting it away

So borg is the past tense of bergen in the separable verb opbergen.

Because opbergen is a separable verb.

In Dutch main clauses, the conjugated part goes in the normal verb position, and the separable prefix moves to the end:

• opbergen → ik berg ... op
• past tense: ik borg ... op

So in:

• dus ik borg beide meteen op

the verb is really opborgen/opbergen, split into:

• borg = finite verb
• op = separable particle

This is very common in Dutch:

• aandoen → Ik deed het licht aan
• meenemen → Ik nam het mee
• opruimen → Ik ruimde alles op

Because dus is a coordinating conjunction, not an adverb that triggers inversion.

After coordinating conjunctions like:

• en = and
• maar = but
• dus = so
• want = because
• of = or

the next clause usually keeps normal main-clause word order:

• dus ik borg beide meteen op

That is why the subject ik comes before the verb borg.

Compare that with daarom:

• Daarom borg ik beide meteen op

Here inversion happens because daarom is an adverb placed first in the clause.

So:

• Dus ik borg ... = correct
• Daarom borg ik ... = also correct, but different word type

Beide means both.

So the second clause means:

• dus ik borg beide meteen op = so I immediately put both away

The important thing is that beide refers to two things already understood from the context. If the sentence only explicitly mentions the teaspoon, then the other item must have been mentioned earlier or be obvious from the situation.

A learner might wonder: both what? That is a very reasonable question. Grammatically, the sentence is fine, but context is needed to know exactly which two items are meant.

Here beide is the right form because it refers to things, not people.

A useful rule of thumb is:

• beide = both, especially for things
• beiden = both, mainly when referring to people in more formal Dutch
• allebei = very common everyday word for both

So for objects, beide is natural:

• Ik borg beide op = I put both away

If it were about two people, you might see:

• Ik ken hen beiden = I know both of them

In everyday speech, many speakers would also say allebei:

• dus ik borg ze allebei meteen op

That would sound a bit more conversational.

Meteen means immediately, right away, or straight away.

In this sentence:

• dus ik borg beide meteen op

it shows that the speaker put the items away without delay.

Its position is natural here: after the object beide and before the separable particle op.

Dutch adverb placement is somewhat flexible, but not completely free. This sentence sounds normal as it is. You could also hear similar alternatives depending on emphasis, for example:

• dus ik borg meteen beide op
• dus ik borg ze meteen op

But dus ik borg beide meteen op is perfectly good Dutch.

Because Dutch often uses the simple past in storytelling, narration, and written descriptions of past events.

So:

• lag = simple past of liggen
• borg ... op = simple past of opbergen

This gives the sentence a smooth narrative feel:

• The teaspoon was still on the cutting board, so I immediately put both away.

Dutch could also use the perfect in some contexts:

• De theelepel heeft nog op de snijplank gelegen, dus ik heb beide meteen opgeborgen

But that sounds less natural for a short narrative sentence like this. The simple past is the more idiomatic choice here.

Because both nouns are common-gender nouns in Dutch, and common-gender singular nouns take de.

So:

• de theelepel
• de snijplank

There is not always a reliable way to predict whether a noun takes de or het, so learners usually need to memorize the article along with the noun.

It helps to learn them as full units:

• de theelepel = the teaspoon
• de snijplank = the cutting board

That is more useful than learning the noun alone.