de of het halfuur?
het halfuur
half-hour
noun
It is “het halfuur”. The plural is “de halfuren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: halfuur
Forms
- Article
- het halfuur
- Plural
- de halfuren
- Diminutive
- het halfuurtje
- Also means
- half an hour
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het duurt ongeveer een halfuur.
It takes about half an hour.
Ik ben er over een halfuur.
I'll be there in half an hour.
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 halfuur” rather than as “halfuur” 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.