de of het relaas?
het relaas
account
noun
It is “het relaas”. The plural is “de relazen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: relaas
Forms
- Article
- het relaas
- Plural
- de relazen
- Diminutive
- het relaasje
- Also means
- story, report
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
De journalist schreef het hele relaas op.
The journalist wrote down the whole account.
Dit is het relaas van een ontsnapping.
This is the account of an escape.
Ze luisterde aandachtig naar zijn persoonlijke relaas.
She listened attentively to his personal account.
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 relaas” rather than as “relaas” 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.