de of het carré?
het carré
square
noun · /kɑˈreː/
It is “het carré”. The plural is “de carrés”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: carré
Forms
- Article
- het carré
- Plural
- de carrés
- Diminutive
- het carreetje
- Also means
- military, square shaped pastry
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Teken een carré op het papier.
Draw a square on the paper.
Neem nog een carré chocolade.
Take another square of chocolate.
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 carré” rather than as “carré” 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.