Word
Door een fout begon de sleuteloverdracht later.
Meaning
Because of an error, the key handover began later.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Door een fout begon de sleuteloverdracht later.
later
later
door
because of
beginnen
to begin
de fout
the error
Questions & Answers about Door een fout begon de sleuteloverdracht later.
What does door mean here? I thought it usually meant through.
Here door means because of or as a result of, not physical through.
In Dutch, door can introduce a cause:
- Door de regen bleef ik thuis. = Because of the rain, I stayed home.
- Door een fout begon de sleuteloverdracht later. = Because of an error, the key handover started later.
So although door often literally means through, in sentences like this it commonly expresses cause.
Why is it een fout and not de fout?
Een fout means an error / a mistake in a general, non-specific way.
- een fout = an error, some error
- de fout = the error, a specific error already known from context
In this sentence, the speaker is just saying that there was some mistake, not necessarily one already identified for the listener. That is why een fout is natural here.
Why is it begon?