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Questions & Answers about Hij eet het stuk taart.
What is hij in this sentence?
hij is the 3rd person singular masculine subject pronoun in Dutch, equivalent to he in English. It tells you who performs the action.
Why is the verb eet spelled with double e and why does it end in -t?
The infinitive is eten (to eat). Its stem is et-, but in Dutch a long vowel is written as ee, so the stem appears as eet-. For the 3rd person singular present tense, you add -t, giving eet (“he eats”).
Why does the sentence keep the order Subject–Verb–Object rather than inverting the verb?
In Dutch main (declarative) clauses, if the subject comes first, you follow it immediately with the finite verb (Subject–Verb–Object), just like in English. Verb inversion (Verb–Subject–Object) happens only after certain words (e.g. adverbs) or in questions.
Why is there no preposition like “of” between stuk and taart (i.e. “piece of cake”)?
Dutch uses measure words (stuk, glas, kilo, etc.) directly before the noun without a preposition. So you say stuk taart, not stuk van taart. The measure word and noun form one unit.
Why is het used before stuk instead of de?
stuk is a neuter noun (a “het-woord”), so it takes the definite article het (“the”). Articles always agree with the gender (or “word class”) of the head noun in the phrase.
Could you say Hij eet een stuk taart instead?
Yes. een is the indefinite article (“a”), so Hij eet een stuk taart means He eats a piece of cake (unspecified). Using het makes it “the piece of cake” (a specific slice).
Why isn’t there an article in front of taart?
The article belongs to the head noun stuk, not to the noun taart that follows. stuk is the main noun (“piece”), while taart specifies what kind of piece it is.
How do you pronounce ij in hij?
The Dutch digraph ij sounds roughly like the English vowel in my or buy, but shorter. It’s a single vowel sound, pronounced [ɛi] or [əi] in IPA.
How would you put this sentence in the past tense?
Use the past form of eten, which is at for 3rd person singular. So it becomes: Hij at het stuk taart.