de of het pretpark?
het pretpark
amusement park
noun · /ˈprɛt.pɑrk/
It is “het pretpark”. The plural is “de pretparken”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: pretpark
Forms
- Article
- het pretpark
- Plural
- de pretparken
- Diminutive
- het pretparkje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Voor zijn verjaardag gingen we naar het pretpark.
For his birthday, we went to the amusement park.
Het pretpark was gesloten vanwege slecht weer.
The amusement park was closed due to bad weather.
Ze waren opgewonden om de achtbaan in het pretpark te proberen.
They were excited to try the roller coaster in the amusement park.
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 pretpark” rather than as “pretpark” 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.