Hij is niet klein, maar groot.

to be

Breakdown of Hij is niet klein, maar groot.

• klein: small
• groot: big
• niet: not
• maar: but
• hij: he

Questions & Answers about Hij is niet klein, maar groot.

Why do we use niet here and not geen?

In Dutch, niet is used to negate verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, while geen is generally used to negate nouns. Because klein is an adjective describing someone or something’s size, niet is the correct choice.

Why is the pronoun hij used instead of something like dat or dit?

Hij is the common personal pronoun for a male person (similar to “he” in English). Dat or dit are demonstrative pronouns typically referring to ideas or objects rather than people.

How is maar being used in this sentence?

Maar means “but” in Dutch. It introduces a contrast between two statements or descriptions. Here, it contrasts the idea of being niet klein with being groot.

What’s the difference between klein and kleine?

In Dutch, adjectives can have different forms depending on the grammar rules of the sentence (like whether there’s a preceding article or definite article, and whether the noun is singular or plural). Klein is the basic (uninflected) form. Kleine might appear if it precedes a noun with an article (e.g. een kleine jongen). In this sentence, we simply have an adjective following the verb is, so klein is the correct form.

Why does niet come before klein?

In Dutch, the word niet usually appears right before the word or phrase it’s negating. Since it’s negating the adjective klein, it goes directly in front of it.