de of het kot?
het kot
shack
noun · /kɔt/
It is “het kot”. The plural is “de kotten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: kot
Forms
- Article
- het kot
- Plural
- de kotten
- Diminutive
- het kotje
- Also means
- bad, ramshackle housing, student room
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
In wat voor een kot woont die!
What a shack she lives in!
Leuvense koten brandden vaak af in de jaren 90.
Student rooms in Louvain burned down often in the nineties.
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 kot” rather than as “kot” 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.