de of het kraakbeen?
het kraakbeen
cartilage
noun
It is “het kraakbeen”. The plural is “de kraakbeenderen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: kraakbeen
Forms
- Article
- het kraakbeen
- Plural
- de kraakbeenderen
- Diminutive
- het kraakbeentje
- Also means
- piece of gristle
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Ons oor bestaat grotendeels uit kraakbeen.
Our ear largely consists of cartilage.
Bij die val is het kraakbeen in mijn knie beschadigd.
In that fall, the cartilage in my knee was damaged.
Er zat een stukje kraakbeen in mijn vlees.
There was a small piece of cartilage in my meat.
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 kraakbeen” rather than as “kraakbeen” 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.