de of het kantoorgebouw?
het kantoorgebouw
office building
noun
It is “het kantoorgebouw”. The plural is “de kantoorgebouwen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: kantoorgebouw
Forms
- Article
- het kantoorgebouw
- Plural
- de kantoorgebouwen
- Diminutive
- het kantoorgebouwtje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het kantoorgebouw staat tegenover het station.
The office building is opposite the station.
Dat is een modern kantoorgebouw.
That is a modern office building.
We werken op de derde verdieping van dit kantoorgebouw.
We work on the third floor of this office building.
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 kantoorgebouw” rather than as “kantoorgebouw” 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.