Er is warm water in het bad.

to be

Breakdown of Er is warm water in het bad.

• het water: the water
• in: in
• er: there

Questions & Answers about Er is warm water in het bad.

Why does the sentence start with er?

In this sentence, er is the Dutch word used in existential sentences, like English there in there is / there are.

So:

• Er is warm water in het bad. = There is warm water in the bath.

This er does not mean a place like there in over there. It is just a grammatical word that introduces the existence of something.

A very common pattern in Dutch is:

• Er is ... = There is ...
• Er zijn ... = There are ...

Examples:

• Er is koffie. = There is coffee.
• Er zijn handdoeken. = There are towels.

Why is it is and not zijn?

Because the noun phrase after it is treated as singular.

Here, the important part is warm water. Water is an uncountable noun, like water in English, so it takes singular agreement.

• Er is warm water. = There is warm water.
• Er zijn flessen water. = There are bottles of water.

So even though English learners may think of water as a lot of stuff, grammatically it is singular here.

Why is there no article before ?