de of het duo?
het duo
twosome
noun · /ˈdy(ʋ)oː/
It is “het duo”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: duo
Forms
- Article
- het duo
- Diminutive
- het duootje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het duo zingt graag samen.
The duo likes to sing together.
Ik zag het muzikale duo gisteren optreden.
I saw the musical duo perform yesterday.
We gaan lunchen met het nieuwe duo.
We are going to have lunch with the new duo.
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 duo” rather than as “duo” 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.