de of het drievoud?
het drievoud
threefold
noun · /ˈdri.vɑu̯t/
It is “het drievoud”. The plural is “de drievouden”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: drievoud
Forms
- Article
- het drievoud
- Plural
- de drievouden
- Diminutive
- het drievoudje
- Also means
- triplicate
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Dit contract moet in drievoud worden ondertekend.
This contract must be signed in triplicate.
De opbrengst was het drievoud van vorig jaar.
The yield was three times that of last year.
Hun klantenbestand is tot het drievoud gegroeid.
Their customer base has grown to three times its size.
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 drievoud” rather than as “drievoud” 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.