de of het onraad?
het onraad
danger
noun
It is “het onraad”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: onraad
Forms
- Article
- het onraad
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Ik rook direct onraad bij zijn verhaal.
I immediately smelled trouble with his story.
Er is onraad, we moeten voorzichtig zijn.
There is danger, we must be careful.
Overal zag hij tekenen van naderend onraad.
Everywhere he saw signs of approaching danger.
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 onraad” rather than as “onraad” 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.