de of het college?
het college
lecture
noun · /ˌkɔˈleː.ʒə/
It is “het college”. The plural is “de colleges”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: college
Forms
- Article
- het college
- Plural
- de colleges
- Diminutive
- het collegetje
- Also means
- collegial board, as an authority, secondary school, high school, academic lecture
- How common
- among the 5,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het college begint om negen uur.
The lecture starts at nine o'clock.
Ik heb vandaag drie colleges.
I have three lectures today.
Zij geeft college over geschiedenis.
She lectures on history.
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 college” rather than as “college” 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.