de of het comité?
het comité
committee
noun · /ˌkɔ.miˈteː/
It is “het comité”. The plural is “de comités”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: comité
Forms
- Article
- het comité
- Plural
- de comités
- Diminutive
- het comiteetje
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het comité vergadert elke dinsdag.
The committee meets every Tuesday.
Het comité heeft een besluit genomen.
The committee has made a decision.
Ik ben lid van het comité.
I am a member of the committee.
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 comité” rather than as “comité” 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.