de of het slib?
het slib
silt
noun · /slɪp/
It is “het slib”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: slib
Forms
- Article
- het slib
- Also means
- mud, earth deposit, sediment
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het kanaal zit vol met slib.
The canal is full of silt.
Ze moeten het slib uit de haven baggeren.
They need to dredge the silt from the harbor.
Na de overstroming lag er overal slib.
After the flood, there was silt everywhere.
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 slib” rather than as “slib” 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.