"Dankzij hem ben ik burgemeester."
Translation:Thanks to him I am a mayor.
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Why "ben ik" and not "ik ben"?
English is an SVO language whereas Dutch is a V2 language.
In English the word order of statements (not questions) is Subject Verb Object. "Thanks to him, I[s] am[v] mayor[o]". The dependant clause "Thanks to him" is ignored in this structure.
In Dutch statements, the verb always occupies the second position. "Dankzij hem[1], ben[2,v] ik[3,s] burgemeester[4,o]". The dependant clause "Dankzij hem" is counted as the first position. If you remove it from this sentence, you have to move "ik" to the first position, thereby keeping the verb in the second position.
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What is wrong with this sentence? I've tried writing it with een burgemeester and without een and both showed me the other option x.x am I going paranoid?
Both are accepted, without your full answer it's hard to judge why it was rejected.
What's wrong? I cannot see the difference between my sentence and the right answer!
