de of het landingsgestel?
het landingsgestel
Landing gear
noun · /ˈlɑn.dɪŋs.xəˌstɛl/
It is “het landingsgestel”. The plural is “de landingsgestellen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: landingsgestel
Forms
- Article
- het landingsgestel
- Plural
- de landingsgestellen
- Diminutive
- het landingsgestelletje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het landingsgestel is uit.
The landing gear is down.
De piloot trok het landingsgestel in.
The pilot retracted the landing gear.
Er was een probleem met het landingsgestel.
There was a problem with the landing gear.
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 landingsgestel” rather than as “landingsgestel” 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.