de of het naamwoord?
het naamwoord
noun
noun · /ˈnaːmʋoːrt/
It is “het naamwoord”. The plural is “de naamwoorden”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: naamwoord
Forms
- Article
- het naamwoord
- Plural
- de naamwoorden
- Diminutive
- het naamwoordje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Een naamwoord is een woordsoort.
A noun is a word class.
Het woord 'huis' is een naamwoord.
The word 'house' is a noun.
In deze zin staan twee naamwoorden.
This sentence contains two nouns.
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 naamwoord” rather than as “naamwoord” 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.