de of het machinegeweer?
het machinegeweer
machine gun
noun · /maːˈʃi.nə.ɣəˌʋeːr/
It is “het machinegeweer”. The plural is “de machinegeweren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: machinegeweer
Forms
- Article
- het machinegeweer
- Plural
- de machinegeweren
- Diminutive
- het machinegeweertje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
De soldaat hanteerde het machinegeweer met precisie.
The soldier handled the machine gun with precision.
Het machinegeweer vuurde een stroom kogels uit.
The machine gun fired a stream of bullets.
Hij droeg een zwaar machinegeweer tijdens de missie.
He carried a heavy machine gun during the mission.
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 machinegeweer” rather than as “machinegeweer” 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.