de of het artillerievuur?
het artillerievuur
artillery fire
noun · /ɑr.tɪ.ləˈriˌvyːr/
It is “het artillerievuur”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: artillerievuur
Forms
- Article
- het artillerievuur
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het artillerievuur begon onverwacht.
The artillery fire started unexpectedly.
Ze schuilden voor het artillerievuur.
They took shelter from the artillery fire.
Het dorp leed onder zwaar artillerievuur.
The village suffered under heavy artillery fire.
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 artillerievuur” rather than as “artillerievuur” 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.