de of het landgoed?
het landgoed
estate
noun · /ˈlɑnt.xut/
It is “het landgoed”. The plural is “de landgoederen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: landgoed
Forms
- Article
- het landgoed
- Plural
- de landgoederen
- Diminutive
- het landgoedje
- Also means
- manor, property
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het landgoed ligt verscholen in het bos.
The estate is hidden in the forest.
Dit landgoed is onlangs verkocht.
This estate was recently sold.
We wandelen graag over het landgoed.
We like to walk across the estate.
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 landgoed” rather than as “landgoed” 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.