Questions & Answers about Ik ben een man.
How is een pronounced here? It looks like it should have a long vowel sound.
The word een (meaning "a" or "an") is an unstressed word, so it is actually pronounced with a short "uh" sound, similar to the "a" in the English word "about". It only gets a long vowel sound if it is written with accents (één), which is how you write the number "one".
Does the word een change depending on the gender of the noun?
No, it stays exactly the same! While Dutch has two different words for "the" (de and het) depending on a noun's gender, there is only one word for "a" or "an". You use een for all singular nouns, so it is always een man, een huis (a house), etc.
The verb here is ben (ik ben). How does that change if I use the formal u we are learning about?
Do I always capitalize ik like I do with the word "I" in English?