de of het corps?
het corps
student society
noun · /koːr/
It is “het corps”. The plural is “de corpsen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: corps
Forms
- Article
- het corps
- Plural
- de corpsen
- Diminutive
- het corpsje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Hij is lid van het corps.
He is a member of the student society.
Het corps organiseert een feest.
The student society is organizing a party.
Ga je ook bij het corps?
Are you also joining the student society?
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 corps” rather than as “corps” 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.