de of het drietal?
het drietal
trio
noun · /ˈdri.tɑl/
It is “het drietal”. The plural is “de drietallen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: drietal
Forms
- Article
- het drietal
- Plural
- de drietallen
- Diminutive
- het drietalletje
- Also means
- triplet, group of three
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het drietal studenten ging naar huis.
The trio of students went home.
Ik zag een drietal vogels in de lucht.
I saw a trio of birds in the sky.
Ons drietal vrienden organiseerde een feest.
Our trio of friends organized a party.
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 drietal” rather than as “drietal” 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.