De beer eet.

Dutch has two singular definite articles:

• de for common-gender nouns
• het for neuter nouns

Beer is a de-word, so you say de beer.

A useful general rule:

• singular common-gender nouns usually take de
• singular neuter nouns take het
• plural nouns always take de

Unfortunately, whether a noun is a de-word or het-word often has to be learned with the noun itself.

Yes. In Dutch, beer means bear.

The drink beer in English is bier in Dutch.

So:

• beer = bear
• bier = beer

This is a very common thing for English speakers to notice, because the Dutch word beer looks exactly like the English drink word.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation is:

• de ≈ duh
• beer ≈ something like bair
• eet ≈ something like ate, but with a purer vowel

A few important notes:

• de is usually unstressed.
• beer does not sound like English beer.
• The ee in beer and eet is a long Dutch vowel.

So the whole sentence is roughly:

duh bair ate

That is only an approximation, but it is a helpful start.

Eten is the infinitive, meaning to eat.

In this sentence, the verb is conjugated to match the subject de beer = the bear, which is third person singular.

Present tense of eten:

• ik eet = I eat
• jij eet = you eat
• hij/zij/de beer eet = he/she/the bear eats
• wij eten = we eat
• jullie eten = you eat
• zij eten = they eat

So de beer eet uses the correct singular form: eet.

In the Dutch present tense, many verbs take a -t ending in the third person singular.

Here, de beer is equivalent to he/she/it in grammatical behavior, so the verb takes the singular form eet.

With eten, the relevant forms are:

• ik eet
• jij eet
• hij eet
• de beer eet

So the -t is part of the normal present-tense form used with a singular subject like de beer.

It can mean both, depending on context.

Dutch often uses the simple present where English might use either:

• The bear eats
• The bear is eating

So De beer eet can describe:

• a general fact or habit, or
• something happening right now

If Dutch speakers want to be more explicitly progressive, they can also use another construction, but in everyday language the simple present is often enough.

Yes. In this sentence, the basic order is:

• De beer = subject
• eet = verb

So it matches English The bear eats.

This is a normal Dutch main-clause pattern.

However, Dutch main clauses follow the verb-second rule, so if another element comes first, the verb still stays in second position:

• Nu eet de beer. = Now the bear is eating.

So the sentence you were given has the simplest, most English-like word order.

Yes.

• De beer eet = The bear eats
• Een beer eet = A bear eats

So the difference is the article:

• de = the definite article
• een = a/an indefinite article

Use de beer when you mean a specific bear, and een beer when you mean any bear or an unspecified bear.

In this simple sentence, the subject is the noun phrase before the verb:

• de beer = subject
• eet = verb

So the bear is the one doing the eating.

In basic Dutch statements, this pattern is very common:

subject + verb

That makes De beer eet easy to read once you know the words.