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Het mes en de vork liggen op tafel.

Het mes en de vork liggen op tafel.
The knife and fork are on the table.
From Lesson 106:Quantitative pronoun (er)·Dutch

Breakdown of Het mes en de vork liggen op tafel.

liggen
to lie
het mes
the knife
de vork
the fork

Questions & Answers about Het mes en de vork liggen op tafel.

Why does the sentence use liggen instead of a translation of "are"?
In Dutch, we rarely use zijn (to be) to say where something is. Instead, we use position verbs like liggen (to lie), staan (to stand), or zitten (to sit). Because a knife and a fork are flat and resting horizontally, we use liggen.
Why does it say op tafel instead of op de tafel?
In Dutch, the article is often dropped in everyday phrases about standard locations, similar to how we say "in bed" or "at school" in English. Op tafel is a very common fixed phrase. You can say op de tafel, but op tafel sounds more natural in everyday speech.
Why do we use both het and de for "the" here?
Dutch has two words for "the" in the singular: de and het. Mes (knife) happens to be a "het-word" (het mes), while vork (fork) is a "de-word" (de vork). Every Dutch noun has a specific gender, so you simply have to memorize the correct article for each word.

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