de of het artikel?
het artikel
article
noun · /ɑrˈtikəl/
It is “het artikel”. The plural is “de artikelen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: artikel
Forms
- Article
- het artikel
- Plural
- de artikelen
- Diminutive
- het artikeltje
- How common
- among the 3,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het artikel in de krant was kort.
The article in the newspaper was short.
Ik zoek dit artikel in de winkel.
I am looking for this item in the shop.
Dit gaat over een artikel dat ik las.
This is about an article I read.
Why this article
No rule predicts it
This one has to be memorised. No spelling pattern marks it as neuter, which is exactly why it is worth learning as “het artikel” rather than as “artikel” on its own.
The rules that do work
- • Every plural takes “de”, without exception.
- • Every diminutive ending in -je takes “het”, without exception.
- • Nouns ending in -ing, -heid, -tie, -teit or -schap take “de”.
- • Roughly two thirds of all nouns take “de”, so it is the better guess.
Other nouns whose article has to be memorised
Stop guessing de and het
Woordje has a practice mode for exactly this: it shows a noun and asks for the article, and keeps asking until you stop getting it wrong.