de of het korps?
het korps
military corps
noun · /kɔrps/
It is “het korps”. The plural is “de korpsen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: korps
Forms
- Article
- het korps
- Plural
- de korpsen
- Diminutive
- het korpsje
- Also means
- notably hierarchical
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Hij wil bij het korps.
He wants to join the corps.
Het korps traint elke dag.
The corps trains every day.
Is het korps al vertrokken?
Has the corps already left?
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 korps” rather than as “korps” 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.