de of het huisarrest?
het huisarrest
house arrest
noun
It is “het huisarrest”. The plural is “de huisarresten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: huisarrest
Forms
- Article
- het huisarrest
- Plural
- de huisarresten
- Diminutive
- het huisarrestje
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
De jongen heeft huisarrest gekregen.
The boy has received house arrest.
Vanwege zijn gedrag kreeg hij huisarrest.
Because of his behaviour, he received house arrest.
Het huisarrest duurt nog een week.
The house arrest will last another week.
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 huisarrest” rather than as “huisarrest” 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.