Breakdown of Het meisje doet haar huiswerk niet.
het meisje
the girl
niet
not
doen
to do
haar
her
het huiswerk
the homework
Questions & Answers about Het meisje doet haar huiswerk niet.
Why is the verb doet instead of a regular conjugation?
Doet is the he/she/it form of the irregular verb doen (to do). Since het meisje (the girl) acts as a singular subject here, we use doet. The singular forms for this verb are ik doe (I do) and jij/hij/zij/het doet (you/he/she/it does).
Why is it het meisje and not de meisje, since a girl is a female person?
In Dutch, all words ending in -je are diminutives (meaning small or little), and every single diminutive gets the article het. Even though a girl is a female person, the grammatical rule for the -je ending takes over, making it a het word.
If meisje is a het word, why does the sentence use haar (her) instead of a neuter pronoun?
Even though the grammar makes het meisje a neuter word, Dutch speakers use biological gender when picking possessive pronouns for people. Because a girl is biologically female, we say haar huiswerk (her homework), which sounds much more natural than using a neuter pronoun like its homework.
Why does niet go at the very end of the sentence?
When you want to negate a sentence that has a specific direct object, the word niet (not) comes after that object. Here, the specific object is haar huiswerk (her homework). So instead of saying does not her homework like in English, the Dutch word order is does her homework not.
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