de of het karkas?
het karkas
carcass
noun · /kɑrˈkɑs/
It is “het karkas”. The plural is “de karkassen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: karkas
Forms
- Article
- het karkas
- Plural
- de karkassen
- Diminutive
- het karkasje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het karkas lag al dagen in het bos.
The carcass had been lying in the forest for days.
Na het eten gooiden we het karkas weg.
After eating, we threw away the carcass.
De karkassen werden verwerkt tot diervoeder.
The carcasses were processed into animal feed.
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 karkas” rather than as “karkas” 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.