de of het huurhuis?
het huurhuis
rented house
noun
It is “het huurhuis”. The plural is “de huurhuizen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: huurhuis
Forms
- Article
- het huurhuis
- Plural
- de huurhuizen
- Diminutive
- het huurhuisje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het huurhuis is erg klein.
The rented house is very small.
We zoeken een betaalbaar huurhuis.
We are looking for an affordable rented house.
In een huurhuis mag je niet alles verbouwen.
In a rented house, you are not allowed to renovate everything.
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 huurhuis” rather than as “huurhuis” 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.