Breakdown of We weten de waarheid niet.
niet
not
weten
to know (a fact)
de waarheid
the truth
we
we (unstressed form of wij)
Questions & Answers about We weten de waarheid niet.
Why is niet at the very end of the sentence?
In Dutch, niet usually comes after a specific direct object. Here, the object is de waarheid (the truth). Because it has the definite article de (the), it is a specific object, so niet gets pushed to the end of the sentence.
Could I use geen instead of niet here?
No, because geen (meaning 'no' or 'not any') is only used to negate nouns with the indefinite article een (a/an) or nouns with no article at all. Since we are saying 'the truth' (de waarheid), which has a definite article, we must use niet.
Why use weten for 'know' instead of kennen?
Dutch has two verbs for 'to know'. Use weten for knowing facts, information, or a truth like in this sentence. You use kennen when you are familiar with a person, place, or thing, like knowing a friend or a city.
Is there a difference between using we and wij in this sentence?
Both mean 'we', but we is the unstressed, everyday version. You would only use wij here if you wanted to strongly emphasize that we do not know the truth, perhaps implying that someone else does.