De hond is bruin.

De is the Dutch definite article, equivalent to the.

Dutch nouns take either de or het in the singular. Hond is a de-word, so you say de hond.

Unfortunately, there is not always a simple rule for whether a noun takes de or het, so learners often have to memorize it with the noun:

• de hond = the dog
• het huis = the house

A useful thing to remember:

• singular nouns can be de or het
• all plural nouns take de

So:

• de hond
• de honden

In modern Dutch grammar, hond is usually treated as a common-gender noun, which means it takes de.

You may also see older or more detailed discussions calling some de-words masculine or feminine, but for most learners the important practical point is simply:

• hond is a de-word
• so you say de hond

In everyday Dutch, knowing whether a noun is a de-word or a het-word is usually more important than worrying about older gender labels.

Because bruin comes after the verb is and describes the subject. In this position, Dutch adjectives normally do not take an ending.

So:

• De hond is bruin. = adjective after the verb → bruin

But when the adjective comes before the noun, it usually does take -e:

• de bruine hond = the brown dog

This is a very common pattern in Dutch:

• Het huis is groot.
• het grote huis

So the short version is:

• after is / zijn / lijkt / wordt, usually no -e
• before a noun, usually -e

In this sentence, yes. The structure is:

• De hond = subject
• is = verb
• bruin = adjective/complement

So it works like English The dog is brown.

However, Dutch has an important rule called verb-second. In a normal main clause, the conjugated verb usually stays in the second position.

For example:

• De hond is bruin.
• Vandaag is de hond bruin.

Even when another word comes first, the verb still comes second:

• Vandaag
  • is
    • de hond
      • bruin

So this sentence looks very English-like, but Dutch word order becomes more different in longer sentences.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

• de ≈ duh
• hond ≈ hont
• is ≈ iss
• bruin has the Dutch ui sound, which does not exist exactly in English

A rough English-friendly approximation might be:

duh hont iss brown
—but that last word is only approximate.

A few useful notes:

• In normal speech, de is usually unstressed.
• The d at the end of hond is pronounced more like t because of final devoicing.
• The vowel in bruin is one of the harder Dutch sounds for English speakers.

If you want to sound more natural, the hardest part is usually ui in bruin.

This is because of a common Dutch pronunciation rule: voiced consonants at the end of a word are often devoiced.

So although the word is spelled hond, the final d is pronounced more like t.

That means:

• spelled: hond
• pronounced approximately: hont

This happens in many Dutch words, so it is very normal.

Yes, it is closely related. Dutch is and English is are cognates.

It is the third-person singular form of the verb zijn = to be.

Some present-tense forms are:

• ik ben = I am
• jij bent = you are
• hij/zij/het is = he/she/it is
• wij zijn = we are
• jullie zijn = you are
• zij zijn = they are

So in De hond is bruin, is agrees with the singular subject de hond.

For a yes/no question in Dutch, you usually invert the verb and the subject.

So:

• statement: De hond is bruin.
• question: Is de hond bruin?

This is very similar to older or more formal English patterns like Is the dog brown?

So the basic rule is:

• statement: subject + verb
• yes/no question: verb + subject

You add niet:

• De hond is niet bruin. = The dog is not brown.

In this kind of sentence, niet usually comes after the verb and before the adjective or description.

Compare:

• De hond is bruin.
• De hond is niet bruin.

So niet is the usual word for not in a sentence like this.

Yes, but the meaning changes.

• De hond is bruin. usually refers to a specific dog: the dog
• Een hond is bruin. means a dog is brown, which can sound more general or less specific depending on context

So if you are talking about one particular dog that both speaker and listener know, de hond is the natural choice.

Yes, bruin is completely normal for animals too. It can describe:

• fur
• hair
• clothes
• furniture
• many other things

So De hond is bruin is a perfectly natural Dutch sentence.

Dutch does not need a special different adjective here.

The plural is:

• De honden zijn bruin. = The dogs are brown.

Changes:

• hond → honden
• is → zijn

Notice that the adjective still stays bruin after the verb:

• singular: De hond is bruin.
• plural: De honden zijn bruin.

Also remember: plural nouns take de, so it is still de honden.

No. Unlike German, Dutch does not capitalize all nouns.

So normally you write:

• de hond is bruin

Only the first word of the sentence is capitalized here because it starts the sentence:

• De hond is bruin.

Proper names are capitalized, of course, but ordinary nouns like hond and adjectives like bruin are not.