Learn Dutch: Mijn vader gelooft hem nooit. - My father never believes him.

Hij is the subject pronoun ("he"), but here the father is the one doing the believing. The person being believed is the object of the sentence, so we use the object pronoun hem ("him"). This works exactly like "he" and "him" in English!

The dictionary says the verb for "to believe" is geloven. Why is it spelled with an 'f' in gelooft?

In Dutch, syllables almost never end in a 'v' or 'z'. To find the stem of geloven, we drop the -en to get "gelov", but we must change the 'v' to an 'f' at the end of the syllable, making it geloof. Then, because the subject is Mijn vader ("My father", a "he"), we add a -t to make gelooft.

Why does nooit ("never") come at the very end of the sentence?

In a standard Dutch sentence, the conjugated verb (gelooft) must take the second position. The subject (Mijn vader) is in the first position. Furthermore, definite objects like the pronoun hem usually come before adverbs like nooit. So, the literal word order is "My father believes him never."

Will Dutch speakers always pronounce the 'h' in hem?