de of het kinderspel?
het kinderspel
child's play
noun
It is “het kinderspel”. The plural is “de kinderspellen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: kinderspel
Forms
- Article
- het kinderspel
- Plural
- de kinderspellen
- Diminutive
- het kinderspelletje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Die puzzel is kinderspel.
That puzzle is child's play.
Voor hem was de test kinderspel.
For him, the test was child's play.
Het is kinderspel om de route te vinden.
It's child's play to find the route.
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 kinderspel” rather than as “kinderspel” 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.