Where niet goes in a Dutch sentence

Niet is the Dutch word for not. English builds a negative with a helper verb — I work turns into I do not work — but Dutch adds no such helper: Ik werk (I work) becomes simply Ik werk niet. What takes practice is not the word niet itself but its spot in the sentence, which shifts depending on what you are denying.

As a default, put niet late in the sentence — after the middle field and just before any final verbs — to negate the whole clause; but put it directly in front of a single element when you negate only that element. The main cases:

1. Negating the whole sentence: niet comes near the end, before any verbs that sit at the end. Ik ken hem niet. (I don't know him.) Ik wil vandaag niet werken. (I don't want to work today — niet before the end verb werken.)
2. Before an adjective or a describing complement: niet sits right in front of it. De soep is niet warm. (The soup isn't warm.) Hij is niet ziek. (He isn't ill.)
3. Before a place that shows direction: niet comes right before it. Ze gaan niet naar het station. (They aren't going to the station.) Hij wil niet naar buiten. (He doesn't want to go outside.)
4. Before one specific word, to contrast it: Ik ga niet morgen, maar vrijdag. (I'm going not tomorrow, but Friday.) Here niet singles out morgen.

The end-of-clause slot in case 1 covers most everyday situations — denying a plain statement — so reach for it first, and move niet earlier only when you are singling out one word or a direction. The other middle-field pieces line up around it by the usual time–manner–place pattern.

Use geen, not niet, to negate a noun that has een or no article at all. Ik heb geen auto. (I don't have a car.) Ik drink geen koffie. (I don't drink coffee.) Using niet here — ik heb niet een auto — sounds wrong. For the full split between the two, see niet or geen?.

The tricky part is a phrase of direction. In English the not can drift toward the front — We didn't drive home — but Dutch pins niet directly ahead of the direction and lets nothing slip in between. So it is We zijn niet naar huis gereden (We didn't drive home); pushing niet past the direction, as in We zijn naar huis niet gereden, is wrong. The same goes for niet naar buiten, niet naar bed, and any other naar-phrase of movement.