de of het plafond?
het plafond
ceiling
noun · /plaːˈfɔn/
It is “het plafond”. The plural is “de plafonds”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: plafond
Forms
- Article
- het plafond
- Plural
- de plafonds
- Diminutive
- het plafondje
- Also means
- maximum, upper limit
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het plafond is wit geschilderd.
The ceiling is painted white.
De lamp hangt aan het plafond.
The lamp hangs from the ceiling.
We moeten het plafond nog witten.
We still need to paint the ceiling white.
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 plafond” rather than as “plafond” 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.