de of het prul?
het prul
trinket
noun · /prʏl/
It is “het prul”. The plural is “de prullen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: prul
Forms
- Article
- het prul
- Plural
- de prullen
- Diminutive
- het prulletje
- Also means
- useless, worthless thing, junk, trifle, turd
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Ik moet eens al die nutteloze prullen weggooien.
I'll have to throw out all that useless junk.
Dit oude ding is een echt prul.
This old thing is a real piece of junk.
Ik heb dat prul weggegooid.
I threw that piece of junk away.
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 prul” rather than as “prul” 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.