de of het juk?
het juk
yoke
noun
It is “het juk”. The plural is “de jukken”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: juk
Forms
- Article
- het juk
- Plural
- de jukken
- Diminutive
- het jukje
- Also means
- burden, restrains a person
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
De boer legde het juk op de os.
The farmer put the yoke on the ox.
Ze wierpen het juk van de onderdrukking af.
They threw off the yoke of oppression.
Met een juk droeg ze twee emmers water.
With a yoke, she carried two buckets of water.
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 juk” rather than as “juk” 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.