Learn Dutch: Ken jij het antwoord? - Do you know the answer?

This is a special spelling rule for questions in Dutch. When jij or je (you) comes exactly after the verb, the verb drops the -t. As a normal statement, it is jij kent (you know), but when flipped into a question, it becomes ken jij.

Where is the word for "do" in this question?

Dutch doesn't use "do" to make questions. Instead, it uses a trick called inversion: you just swap the subject and the verb. So instead of saying "Do you know?", you literally say "Know you?" (Ken jij?).

I thought the verb "to know" was weten. Why are we using kennen here?

Dutch has two verbs for "to know". Kennen means to be familiar with a noun, like a person, a place, a song, or an answer. Weten is used for knowing facts or whole clauses, like "I know what you did". Because het antwoord (the answer) is a noun, using a form of kennen works perfectly here, though Weet jij het antwoord? is also correct and very common!

Can I say ken je instead of ken jij?

Absolutely! Ken je het antwoord? is actually more common in casual, everyday conversation. You use jij here if you want to put special emphasis on the person you are talking to: "Do you know the answer?"?