Word
Het meisje kookt vandaag in de keuken.
Meaning
The girl cooks in the kitchen today.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Questions & Answers about Het meisje kookt vandaag in de keuken.
How do we get the verb form kookt?
The dictionary verb is koken (to cook). For a singular subject like het meisje (the girl), we need the stem plus -t. We drop the -en and adjust the spelling to keep the long vowel sound, giving us the stem kook. Then we add the -t to make kookt.
Why does the dictionary verb koken have one 'o', but kookt has two?
In koken, the syllable breaks as ko-ken. Because the o is at the end of the first syllable, it sounds long. If we just dropped the -en, we would get kok, which has a short o sound. We must double the o to kook to keep that long vowel sound before adding the -t.
Why is it het meisje and not de meisje?
In Dutch, all words ending in -je are diminutives (meaning a smaller or cute version of something). All diminutives are strictly het words. Even though a girl is a person, the grammatical rule for the -je ending takes over!
Why does vandaag (today) come in the middle of the sentence instead of at the end like in English?