Word order exercises Wiki Dutch Word Order (EN)

The indirect object is the recipient of the direct object. In English, this object is preceded by either 'to' or 'for'. E.g. "I give the book to her" and "I bought a book for her".

In both sentences, we can omit the preposition: "I give her the book" and "I bought her a book". Because in both sentences, the indirect objects are reduced to 'her', we refer to this component as the reduced indirect object.

In Dutch, we can also drop the prepositions aan (to) and voor (for). It is, however, less common to do this with indirect objects that take the preposition voor.

We find the unreduced indirect object somewhere in the right part of the main clause. But if we omit the preposition (aan or voor), the indirect object occurs in the left part of the main clause.

Had we not omitted the preposition aan, the sentence would have looked differently:

Aan hen is the correct form, but aan hun is more commonly used and no longer considered incorrect. See also Them: 'hen' or 'hun'?

We can also omit voor, which is more common in Flanders than in most parts of the Netherlands.