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?