de of het kerkkoor?
het kerkkoor
church choir
noun · /ˈkɛrkoːr/
It is “het kerkkoor”. The plural is “de kerkkoren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: kerkkoor
Forms
- Article
- het kerkkoor
- Plural
- de kerkkoren
- Diminutive
- het kerkkoortje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het kerkkoor zingt elke zondag.
The church choir sings every Sunday.
Mijn tante zit in het kerkkoor.
My aunt is in the church choir.
Het kerkkoor klonk prachtig gisteren.
The church choir sounded beautiful yesterday.
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 kerkkoor” rather than as “kerkkoor” 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.