De of het bij mens, vrouw en kind

Why is it “het meisje” not “de meisje” in Dutch?

Dutch has two definite articles: de (common gender) and het (neuter). For people words, beginners expect de across the board — and it works for de vrouw (woman), de man, de jongen (boy). Then along come het meisje and het kind, both neuter. The rule: every Dutch diminutive (ending in -je) is grammatically neuter, so meisje — the diminutive of meid — is always het. And kind is simply a lexically neuter noun, full stop.

The diminutive rule is one of the most reliable shortcuts in Dutch: whatever the base noun’s gender, add -je and it becomes het. So de boot (boat) → het bootje, de man → het mannetje. The catch is that pronouns can still follow biological sex — a meisje is het as a noun but zij (she) when you refer back to her. The clip makes the contrast impossible to miss: de jongen right before het meisje, then het kind followed immediately by de kinderen (plural), because all Dutch plurals take de, neuter or not.