Definite articles and gender (de, het)

Nouns come with their article

Dutch has two words for "the", and which one a noun takes is simply part of the word:

• de — de man, de vrouw
• het — het meisje

No rule predicts it — het meisje is a het-word even though it means "girl" — so a noun is always learned with its article. Most nouns take de.

"To be": zijn

jij and zij have unstressed twins, je and ze, meaning exactly the same.

hier