Dutch uses two words for “no/not”: niet and geen. The rule is clear: use geen to negate a noun that would otherwise have an indefinite article (een) or no article at all. Use niet for everything else — verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and definite nouns. “Ik heb geen auto” (I have no car — negating een auto). “Ik heb de auto niet” (I don’t have the car — negating a definite noun). “Ik slaap niet” (I don’t sleep — negating a verb).
Niet position in a sentence follows a hierarchy. It generally comes before adjectives, adverbs, infinitives, and past participles: “Hij is niet ziek”, “Ik ga niet werken”. It comes after direct objects and time expressions: “Ik lees het boek niet”, “Ik werk morgen niet.” In practice, niet tends to appear near the end of the clause, just before the verb cluster in subordinate clauses: “…omdat ik het niet begrijp.”
Double negatives are not used in standard Dutch — one negation is enough. The word nooit (never) functions as a negation on its own: “Ik ga nooit naar de gym” — you do not add niet as well. Similarly, niemand (nobody), niets (nothing), and nergens (nowhere) are self-contained negatives. These are among the most useful vocabulary items for expressing absence or denial in conversational Dutch.