De kat is klein.

The cat is small.

Breakdown of De kat is klein.

• zijn: to be
• de kat: the cat
• klein: small

Questions & Answers about De kat is klein.

Why is de used instead of het for kat?

In Dutch, kat is a common noun that takes the article de. Dutch nouns can be either de-words or het-words, and kat happens to be a de-word. There isn’t always a straightforward rule for which nouns are de and which are het, so it often comes down to memorizing each noun over time.

Is kat masculine or feminine?

Grammatically, kat is usually treated as a masculine de-word (though some sources may call it common gender if they don’t distinguish masculine vs. feminine). If you actually know the cat’s gender, you might use specific words like kater (male cat) or poes (female cat).

Does klein change form to match de kat?

For a simple sentence like De kat is klein, you use the base form of the adjective klein. In predicates (when using is), the adjective doesn’t get any extra ending. If the adjective were directly before the noun (e.g., de kleine kat), you would add an -e to get kleine.

How do you pronounce klein?

In Dutch, klein sounds roughly like the English word cline (one syllable, with a long ay vowel sound). The k is pronounced as a clear, unaspirated k, and the l is similar to the English l.