de of het meubelstuk?
het meubelstuk
item of furniture
noun · /ˈmøː.bəlˌstʏk/
It is “het meubelstuk”. The plural is “de meubelstukken”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: meubelstuk
Forms
- Article
- het meubelstuk
- Plural
- de meubelstukken
- Diminutive
- het meubelstukje
- Also means
- in a room
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Dit is een mooi meubelstuk.
This is a beautiful piece of furniture.
We hebben nog één meubelstuk nodig.
We still need one piece of furniture.
Welk meubelstuk staat daar?
Which piece of furniture is standing there?
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 meubelstuk” rather than as “meubelstuk” 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.