de of het lidmaatschap?
het lidmaatschap
membership
noun
It is “het lidmaatschap”. The plural is “de lidmaatschappen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: lidmaatschap
Forms
- Article
- het lidmaatschap
- Plural
- de lidmaatschappen
- Diminutive
- het lidmaatschapje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Ik heb het lidmaatschap aangevraagd.
I applied for the membership.
Wat kost het lidmaatschap per jaar?
How much does the membership cost per year?
Het lidmaatschap geeft toegang tot de club.
The membership gives access to the club.
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 lidmaatschap” rather than as “lidmaatschap” 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.