Questions & Answers about Ik zie haar auto niet.
Does haar mean 'her' or 'hair' here?
In this sentence, haar is the possessive word for 'her', meaning the car belongs to her. While the Dutch word het haar does mean 'the hair', you can tell it is the possessive 'her' here because it sits directly in front of the noun (auto) to show ownership.
Why do we use niet instead of geen?
You use geen to negate non-specific things (like saying 'I do not see a car'). But as soon as you use a possessive word like haar, the noun becomes specific. For specific things (like 'the car', 'my car', or 'her car'), you must use niet.
Why is niet at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, niet sits after the specific object it applies to. Since the specific object here is haar auto (her car), niet goes right after it, which pushes it to the end of the sentence. It does not sit next to the verb like it does in English.
Where is the translation for 'do' in 'I do not see'?
Dutch does not use a helper word like 'do' to make a sentence negative. Instead of saying 'I do not see', Dutch simply says 'I see... not' (Ik zie... niet).