de of het jaar?
het jaar
year
noun · /jaːr/
It is “het jaar”. The plural is “de jaren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: jaar
Forms
- Article
- het jaar
- Plural
- de jaren
- Diminutive
- het jaartje
- How common
- among the 1,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Een jaar op Mars duurt ongeveer 687 aardse dagen.
A year on Mars lasts about 687 Earth days.
Het is bijna een jaar geleden dat we elkaar zagen.
It's almost a year since we last saw each other.
Elk jaar vieren we onze trouwdag.
Every year, we celebrate our wedding anniversary.
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 jaar” rather than as “jaar” 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.