Gender and pronouns

Referring to people

It is generally quite obvious when to use the masculine or the feminine gender pronouns for people: when referring to a male person, you use hij, hem and zijn, and when referring to a female person you use zij and haar:

Mijn broer is bankier. Zijn naam is Bart en hij werkt in Utrecht.
My brother is a banker. His name is Bart and he works in Utrecht.

Dit is Monique. Ze komt uit Utrecht. Haar hobby is naar poezenshows gaan.
This is Monique. She is from Utrecht. Her hobby is going to cat shows.

Sometimes a common gender word (het word) is used to refer to people. In these cases, the biological gender overrides the gender of the word:

Kijk eens naar dat meisje! Ze heeft haar ijsje laten vallen.
Look at that girl! She has droped her ice cream.

Zie je dat oude mannetje? Hij woont naast ons.
Do you see that little old man? Hij lives next door to us.

Both meisje and mannetje are diminutives and therefore het words, but later in the text ze and hij are used because girls are feminine and men are masculine.

Referring to objects

When referring to objects the pronouns hij, hem and zijn are generally used for common gender nouns (de words) and the pronouns het and zijn are used for neuter words (het words). For example, kamer is a de word and boek is a het word:

Ik heb een eigen kamer. Hij is niet erg groot.
I have got my own room. It is not very big.

Dit is een geweldig boek. Wil je het lenen?
This is a brilliant book. Do you want to borrow it?

Nevertheless, many more sophisticated Dutch dictionaries indicate whether a de word is masculine (m. for mannelijk) or feminine (v. for vrouwelijk). This is based on historical information and not normally reflected in everyday use in the standard language. That said, some Dutch dialects still have three genders and speakers of those dialect may well reflect that in their use of standard Dutch. This is more likely to happen more in Flanders. The same is true for animals.

Towns and countries

Names of towns and countries in Dutch are always neuter gender (het words), and are therefore referred to with het or zijn:

Gent is een mooie stad. Het heeft een indrukwekkende geschiedenis.
Ghent is a beautiful city. It has an impressive history.

Londen heeft zijn eerste burgemeester gekozen.
London has elected its first mayor.

Nederland staat bekend om zijn landschap.
The Netherlands is known for its landscape.

Animals

People generally refer to animals with hij or hem (‘he’). However, the comment made about dialect speakers above is also valid here. Moreover, if the gender of the animal is known, zij or haar (‘she’) may be used instead. For example:

De buren hebben een hond . Hij is dik.
The neighbours have a dog. He is fat.

Wij hebben een poes . We hebben haar al vijftien jaar.
We have a cat. We have had her fifteen years.