de of het internaat?
het internaat
boarding school
noun · /ˌɪn.tərˈnaːt/
It is “het internaat”. The plural is “de internaten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: internaat
Forms
- Article
- het internaat
- Plural
- de internaten
- Diminutive
- het internaatje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Zij ging naar het internaat.
She went to boarding school.
Vroeger woonde hij op een internaat.
He used to live at a boarding school.
Het internaat van mijn zus was streng.
My sister's boarding school was strict.
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 internaat” rather than as “internaat” 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.