de of het heimwee?
het heimwee
homesickness
noun · /ˈɦɛi̯mʋeː/
It is “het heimwee”. The plural is “de heimweeën”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: heimwee
Forms
- Article
- het heimwee
- Plural
- de heimweeën
- Diminutive
- het heimweetje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Ik heb vaak heimwee als ik op reis ben.
I often get homesick when I'm traveling.
Heb jij ook zo'n last van heimwee?
Do you also suffer so much from homesickness?
Gelukkig had ze helemaal geen heimwee.
Luckily, she had no homesickness at all.
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 heimwee” rather than as “heimwee” 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.