Dutch sentence structures can sometimes leave a verb and its subject miles away from each other as some adverbial clause intervenes. A habit that’s best avoided in English.
It has a very long-winded and legalese feel to it, even when the actual sentence is no lengthier as a result. Probably best explained with a real-life example:
- source:
Hetzelfde geldt wanneer de minister (subject), op advies van XXX, om welke reden dan ook, besluit (verb) het contract te beëindigen - Dunglish:
The same applies if the minister, on the advice of XXX, for any reason whatsoever, decides to terminate the contract - natural English:
The same applies if the minister decides, on the advice of XXX and for any reason whatsoever, to terminate the contract - or
The same applies if the minister decides to terminate the contract on the advice of XXX for any reason whatsoever
Note that the rewritten forms need fewer commas. As a general rule of thumb, that’s a good sign. It means the flow is more natural.
Prevalence: high. Particularly in relatively formal letters and reports. Dutch authors tend to concentrate on single words and rarely bother to think about revising the whole sentence structure.
Frequency: medium. Yup, if it’s that kind of style, it’ll turn up several times in the same report or whatever.
Native: no. We’re perfectly capable of producing contorted sentences, but not usually like this
