de of het pleeggezin?
het pleeggezin
foster home
noun
It is “het pleeggezin”. The plural is “de pleeggezinnen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: pleeggezin
Forms
- Article
- het pleeggezin
- Plural
- de pleeggezinnen
- Diminutive
- het pleeggezinnetje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het pleeggezin vangt kinderen op.
The foster home takes in children.
Het kind woont nu in een pleeggezin.
The child now lives in a foster home.
De zorg van het pleeggezin is goed.
The care of the foster home is good.
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 pleeggezin” rather than as “pleeggezin” 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.