de of het hoederecht?
het hoederecht
child custody
noun
It is “het hoederecht”. The plural is “de hoederechten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: hoederecht
Forms
- Article
- het hoederecht
- Plural
- de hoederechten
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Zij heeft het hoederecht over de kinderen.
She has custody of the children.
De rechtbank besliste over het hoederecht.
The court decided on custody.
Wie krijgt het hoederecht na de scheiding?
Who gets custody after the divorce?
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 hoederecht” rather than as “hoederecht” 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.