de of het borsthaar?
het borsthaar
chest hair
noun · /ˈbɔrst.ɦaːr/
It is “het borsthaar”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: borsthaar
Forms
- Article
- het borsthaar
- Diminutive
- het borsthaartje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Hij heeft veel borsthaar.
He has a lot of chest hair.
Zijn borsthaar is donker en krullend.
His chest hair is dark and curly.
Hij scheert zijn borsthaar soms.
He sometimes shaves his chest hair.
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 borsthaar” rather than as “borsthaar” 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.