Der Hund beißt das Spielzeug.

They are the German definite articles, equivalent to English the.

• der Hund = the dog
• das Spielzeug = the toy

In German, articles also show gender, number, and case, so they do more grammatical work than English the.

Because der Hund is the subject of the sentence, the one doing the action. Subjects take the nominative case.

For the masculine noun Hund:

• der Hund = nominative
• den Hund = accusative

So if the dog were the direct object instead, you would use den Hund.

German uses case to show each noun’s role.

• der Hund is nominative, so it is the subject
• das Spielzeug is accusative here, so it is the direct object

So the dog is the one doing the biting, and the toy is the thing being bitten.

In this sentence, the normal English-like word order also helps:

subject + verb + object
Der Hund + beißt + das Spielzeug

Because for neuter singular nouns, the definite article is das in both the nominative and the accusative.

So:

• nominative: das Spielzeug
• accusative: das Spielzeug

That is different from masculine nouns, where the article often changes, for example:

• nominative: der Hund
• accusative: den Hund

Because the subject is der Hund, which is third-person singular: he/she/it.

The infinitive is beißen. In the present tense, it changes like this:

• ich beiße
• du beißt
• er/sie/es beißt
• wir beißen
• ihr beißt
• sie/Sie beißen

So with der Hund, you need beißt.

The dictionary form is beißen, which means to bite.

beißt is the present tense, third-person singular form. So when you look the verb up, you would search for beißen, not beißt.

ß is called Eszett or scharfes S. It is pronounced like ss, not like English z.

So beißt sounds roughly like biced without the final d, or very close to English bites.

A simple pronunciation guide:

• bei sounds like English bye
• ßt gives an st sound

So overall: bye-st

Because all nouns are capitalized in German.

So in this sentence:

• Hund is capitalized because it is a noun
• Spielzeug is capitalized because it is a noun

This is a general rule, not something special about this sentence.

In a simple main clause, German often looks similar to English:

Der Hund beißt das Spielzeug.

But the deeper rule is that the finite verb must be in second position in a main clause. Because German marks case, the order can sometimes change for emphasis.

For example, German can also say:

Das Spielzeug beißt der Hund.

That still means the dog bites the toy, because der Hund is nominative and therefore the subject. The changed order adds emphasis or a different focus.

So German word order is more flexible than English, but the verb-second rule is very important.

It can mean either one, depending on context.

German present tense often covers both:

• simple present: the dog bites the toy
• present progressive: the dog is biting the toy

If the situation makes it clear that the action is happening now, German usually just uses the normal present tense.

Because German nouns have grammatical gender, and you have to learn each noun with its article.

• der Hund is masculine
• das Spielzeug is neuter

This grammatical gender does not always match real-world sex or natural gender, especially for things. A toy is not biologically neutral; it is simply a noun that belongs to the neuter gender class in German.

That is why it is useful to memorize nouns as full units:

• der Hund
• das Spielzeug

Yes, if you mean a dog or a toy instead of the dog or the toy.

For example:

• Ein Hund beißt ein Spielzeug. = a dog bites a toy
• Der Hund beißt ein Spielzeug. = the dog bites a toy
• Ein Hund beißt das Spielzeug. = a dog bites the toy

So der/das make the nouns definite, while ein makes them indefinite.