de of het honkbalveld?
het honkbalveld
baseball field
noun · /ˈɦɔŋk.bɑlˌvɛlt/
It is “het honkbalveld”. The plural is “de honkbalvelden”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: honkbalveld
Forms
- Article
- het honkbalveld
- Plural
- de honkbalvelden
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het honkbalveld ligt achter de school.
The baseball field is behind the school.
De kinderen trainen op het honkbalveld.
The children train on the baseball field.
Het honkbalveld ziet er goed uit.
The baseball field looks good.
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 honkbalveld” rather than as “honkbalveld” 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.