de of het noordwesten?
het noordwesten
northwest
noun
It is “het noordwesten”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: noordwesten
Forms
- Article
- het noordwesten
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
De wind waait uit het noordwesten.
The wind blows from the northwest.
Het noordwesten van het land is groen.
The northwest of the country is green.
We rijden naar het noordwesten toe.
We are driving towards the northwest.
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 noordwesten” rather than as “noordwesten” 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.