de of het melkwegstelsel?
het melkwegstelsel
galaxy
noun
It is “het melkwegstelsel”. The plural is “de melkwegstelsels”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: melkwegstelsel
Forms
- Article
- het melkwegstelsel
- Plural
- de melkwegstelsels
- Diminutive
- het melkwegstelseltje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Onze Melkweg gaf zijn naam aan alle melkwegstelsels.
Our Milky Way gave its name to all galaxies.
Zijn er nog andere melkwegstelsels?
Are there other galaxies?
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 melkwegstelsel” rather than as “melkwegstelsel” 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.