zei

In a sentence

• "Hij zei dat hij morgen zou komen."

  "He said that he would come tomorrow."

  In this sentence, "zei" is the past tense of the verb "zeggen", meaning "to say" or "to tell".

• "Zei je iets? Ik hoorde het niet duidelijk."

  "Did you say something? I didn't hear it clearly."

  Here, "zei" is used in a question form to ask if someone stated something, again as the past tense of "zeggen".

• "Wat zei ik je? We zouden winnen!"

  "What did I tell you? We would win!"

  In this context, "zei" emphasizes the act of having said something in the past to validate a statement or outcome.