Door de griep bleef zij thuis.

she

Breakdown of Door de griep bleef zij thuis.

• blijven: to stay
• thuis: at home
• door: because of

Questions & Answers about Door de griep bleef zij thuis.

What does door mean here? I thought it usually meant through.

Here door means because of or due to, not through.

So door de griep means because of the flu. Dutch often uses door to introduce a cause, especially when something is caused by an outside factor and often by something negative or unwanted.

Examples:

• Door de regen kwamen we te laat.
• Door een fout werkte het niet.

So in this sentence, de griep is the reason she stayed home.

Why is bleef before zij?

That is because Dutch main clauses follow the verb-second rule.

In a normal statement, the finite verb comes in the second position:

• Zij bleef thuis.

If you put another element first, such as Door de griep, the verb still has to stay second:

• Door de griep bleef zij thuis.

So the order is:

1. Door de griep
2. bleef
3. zij
4. thuis

This is called inversion: the subject comes after the finite verb because something else was moved to the front.

Why is the verb bleef?