de of het echtpaar?
het echtpaar
married couple
noun · /ˈɛxt.paːr/
It is “het echtpaar”. The plural is “de echtparen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: echtpaar
Forms
- Article
- het echtpaar
- Plural
- de echtparen
- Diminutive
- het echtpaartje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het echtpaar vierde hun jubileum.
The couple celebrated their anniversary.
We bezochten het echtpaar vorige week.
We visited the couple last week.
Hiernaast woont een vriendelijk echtpaar.
A friendly couple lives next door.
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 echtpaar” rather than as “echtpaar” 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.