de of het breekpunt?
het breekpunt
breaking point
noun · /ˈbreːk.pʏnt/
It is “het breekpunt”. The plural is “de breekpunten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: breekpunt
Forms
- Article
- het breekpunt
- Plural
- de breekpunten
- Diminutive
- het breekpuntje
- Also means
- political red line
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Dit was het breekpunt voor haar.
This was the breaking point for her.
De onderhandelingen bereikten een breekpunt.
The negotiations reached a breaking point.
We zijn bijna op het breekpunt.
We are almost at the breaking point.
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 breekpunt” rather than as “breekpunt” 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.