"The girl"
Translation:Het meisje
12 Comments
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"Obviously feminine or masculine nouns: de. Gender is very difficult to tell in Dutch, but obvious words like woman (vrouw) and man get de." So why "de meisje" is incorrect? It is an exception?
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No, the word girl in Dutch (and German) is neuter, as hungover mentioned before. De is for feminine and masculine nouns, while het is for neuter nouns. I don't know why the word for girl is neuter in Dutch and German, but they are so you use het.
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Meisje is the diminutive of meid. All diminutives are neuter.
(Thankfully this works the same way in German, or I'd be confused by it too.)
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If a word has "je" or "tje" behind it (meisje, muisje, jongetje, kastje) it a small version of an object, so it gets "het" instead of "de". Example: De jongen(the boy). Het kleine jongetje (the little boy).