Learn Dutch: Wij wonen niet op een platte planeet. - We do not live on a flat planet.

In Dutch main clauses, niet is placed before prepositional phrases that describe a place or location (like op een platte planeet). It would sound unnatural to put it at the very end of this sentence.

Why is the adjective spelled platte instead of just plat?

Adjectives usually get an -e added to them when they come before a noun. Because plat has a short 'a' vowel sound followed by a single consonant, we have to double the t to keep that short vowel sound when adding the -e. This makes it platte.

How does this sentence prove that planeet is a de word?

We can tell it is de planeet by looking at the phrase een platte. If it were a het word, an adjective following een would not get the -e ending (it would be een plat planeet). Because the adjective gets the -e, planeet must be a de word!

Why do we use the preposition op instead of in?