de of het hoofdkantoor?
het hoofdkantoor
head office
noun
It is “het hoofdkantoor”. The plural is “de hoofdkantoren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: hoofdkantoor
Forms
- Article
- het hoofdkantoor
- Plural
- de hoofdkantoren
- Diminutive
- het hoofdkantoortje
- Also means
- headquarters
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het hoofdkantoor is in Amsterdam gevestigd.
The head office is located in Amsterdam.
We bezoeken morgen het hoofdkantoor.
We are visiting the head office tomorrow.
Waar is het hoofdkantoor van dit bedrijf?
Where is this company's head office?
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 hoofdkantoor” rather than as “hoofdkantoor” 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.