Questions & Answers about Ze draagt een korte, zwarte jurk.
Why do the adjectives kort (short) and zwart (black) both end in -e here?
In Dutch, adjectives placed directly before a noun usually get an -e added to the end. Because jurk (dress) is a de-word (de jurk), any adjective before it gets this -e ending, even when we use the word een (a).
What if she was wearing a het-word, like het shirt?
This is where the rule gets tricky! If you have een (a) in front of a het-word, you do not add the -e to the adjective. So it would be een kort, zwart shirt. We only add the -e after een if the noun is a de-word, like jurk.
Why does the verb draagt have a double aa, but its dictionary form dragen only has one a?
This happens because of Dutch spelling rules for keeping a vowel sound 'long'. In dra-gen, the a is at the end of a syllable, so it is naturally long. When we conjugate it to draagt, the syllable is closed by consonants. To keep that exact same long 'a' sound, we have to write it with a double aa.
Could I use Zij instead of Ze at the beginning of this sentence?