Dutch can pack a long English sentence into two words because it relies on grammar that English usually spreads across separate words. In "voorkomt erger," the verb "voorkomt" already contains the subject (third person singular), tense, and the idea of preventing, while "erger" means "worse" or "something worse." English often needs a subject pronoun, an auxiliary, and a preposition to say the same thing, so the Dutch pair expands into something like "that prevents something worse from happening."
The main reason is that Dutch is a synthetic language in some places where English is more analytic. Dutch verbs change endings to show who is doing the action, so a separate pronoun is not always required. Dutch also loves compounds and separable verbs, where one Dutch word can carry a meaning that English splits into a phrase. Word order does extra work too: Dutch puts the finite verb in second position in main clauses and pushes other verbs to the end, so a short clause can imply relationships that English marks with extra words.
Take a sentence like "Hij komt morgen." That is literally "He comes tomorrow," but Dutch can drop the subject in some contexts and still be clear because the verb form signals it. English cannot usually do that. Similarly, "erger voorkomen" means "to prevent something worse," where English needs "something" and "from happening" to make the same point. Dutch does not need those because the verb's meaning and the object's role are already clear from grammar and context.
The tradeoff is that Dutch can feel dense to learners. Fewer words means each word carries more grammatical information, so missing an ending or a word order rule can change the meaning. The practical fix is to stop translating word for word. Instead, learn the verb frame: which verb, which ending, which position, and what the object is doing. Read short Dutch news items or subtitles and try to expand them into full English sentences. Then reverse it: take an English sentence and ask which Dutch verb ending, compound, or word order rule would let you cut words. That habit builds real fluency faster than memorizing isolated vocabulary. If you want structured practice, a course or tutor that explains Dutch grammar in English can help, and Dutch Fluency is one option among many.
Next steps: pick five Dutch sentences you find short but hard to translate. For each, mark the verb, its ending, the subject, and the object. Then write the most literal English version and the most natural one. Compare them. You will start to see the patterns that make Dutch compact.