de of het halfjaar?
het halfjaar
half-year
noun
It is “het halfjaar”. The plural is “de halfjaren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: halfjaar
Forms
- Article
- het halfjaar
- Plural
- de halfjaren
- Diminutive
- het halfjaartje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het eerste halfjaar was erg productief.
The first half-year was very productive.
De cursus duurt een halfjaar.
The course lasts half a year.
We evalueren dit elk halfjaar.
We evaluate this every half-year.
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 halfjaar” rather than as “halfjaar” 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.