de of het middelpunt?
het middelpunt
centre
noun
It is “het middelpunt”. The plural is “de middelpunten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: middelpunt
Forms
- Article
- het middelpunt
- Plural
- de middelpunten
- Diminutive
- het middelpuntje
- Also means
- middle point
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het middelpunt van de cirkel is rood.
The center of the circle is red.
Dit park is het middelpunt van de stad.
This park is the center of the city.
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 middelpunt” rather than as “middelpunt” 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.