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Questions & Answers about De kat is weg.
Doesn't weg usually mean "road"?
Yes, as a noun, de weg means "the road" or "the way". However, weg is also a very common word meaning "away" or "gone". So is weg literally translates to "is away", which we say as "is gone" in English.
Why do we use de instead of het for kat?
In Dutch, every noun gets either de or het for "the". Kat is a de word. While there are a few patterns, for most basic singular nouns like kat, you just have to memorize which article it takes.
If I wanted to say "It is gone" referring to the cat, how would I say that?
Because kat is a de word, you wouldn't use het (it) to refer back to it. Instead, you would use hij (he) or zij (she). If you don't know the cat's gender, it is most common to just use hij.