"Iedereen fietst in Nederland."

Translation: Everybody bikes in the Netherlands.

[dadaduo]

Does it really have to be "The Netherlands?"

[JimboAus]

I put "Holland" and it was marked as incorrect. What gives?

[BenjaminTank]

Holland are the two best known counties in the Netherlands together, South and North Holland. (Im living there, so I know this).

[JimboAus]

As an English speaker, The Netherlands was known for a long time as "Holland". In some parts of the world, they still call it Holland. I understand about North and South Holland being counties, but a lot of English people call The Netherlands "Holland"

[BenjaminTank]

Please correct me if I said something wrong in English :/

[samwisethepooh]

While it's not exactly super wrong, structurally speaking, it would make more sense to say "North and South Holland are the two best known counties...":)

[dublinus]

So I hear.

[Susande]

Indeed it's organised chaos, and biking people includes people in suits, and mothers with kids:

[littleblueduck]

This is not chaos at all. I would love to ride a bike to university in my city, but it's too risky in my opinion, I don't want to be hit by a car. Also, due to a lack of bike culture, there are almost no guarded parking spots for bikes. Also, my city is kind of scenic, so staying fresh and clean is an issue.

[BookerNick]

Would "Everyone rides in the Netherlands" also be acceptable?

[El2theK]

No, because that could refer to riding a horse/motorcycle/etc. whereas the Dutch sentence only refers to riding a bicycle.

[coolperson9]

Question to the person who sets this paper, I don't understand this, there is no article in the original sentence, how could the translation comes with an article? There are other sentences with similar translation too. Could you kindly explain?

[bullskull]

"Nederland" always translates to "the Netherlands". In English you need the article for the name of that country, just like "the US" and "the United Kindgom".

[Charles215113]

Can someone please tell me why you use Nederland in this context, without a definite article - but when translated back, it comes out as "The Netherlands". Surely it should be "het Nederland"?

[dublinus]

Well, "The" Netherlands is just what we call it in English. It's just not called that in Dutch. In English, we have some countries that start with a "The", and those countries don't necessarily have to be the same in other languages.