"Saskia comes late quite often."

Translation: Saskia komt behoorlijk vaak te laat.

[ReneeDubuc]

I thought we learned a different word for "quite"? And I looked, "behoorlijk" up and "quite" wasn't one of the definitions. I'm confused...

[ron.katz72]

I was thinking about "nog" like this: Saskia komt nog vaak te laat
but probably duo wanted to tell us about "behoorlijk"...

[saaymast]

I am not sure that the english and dutch align here; the dutch (reverse translation) would be "Saskia comes TOO late quite often" - "late" and "too late" having different inferences. So I would think that "Saskia komt behoorlijk vaak laat" would be more correct?

[dwarven_hydra]

What exactly is the function of "te" in this sentence?

[Susande]

• Te laat = too late > breaking some rule, deadline or appointment
• Laat = late > later than some norm or reference, or late in the day/week/month, etc.

But in all cases where late means too late, te is always included in Dutch. Basically here it is a bit fuzzy in English and strict in Dutch.

So if you leave out te in Dutch, the meaning changes and Saskia is often later than the norm, but this doesn't have to mean she is too late.