de of het slimmerik?
het slimmerik
smart person
noun
It is “het slimmerik”. The plural is “de slimmeriken”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: slimmerik
Forms
- Article
- het slimmerik
- Plural
- de slimmeriken
- Diminutive
- het slimmerikje
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het slimmerik van de klas won de prijs.
The smart one of the class won the prize.
Hij is echt een slimmerik, hoor!
He's really a smarty pants, you know!
Die slimmerikken vinden altijd een oplossing.
Those smart people always find a solution.
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 slimmerik” rather than as “slimmerik” 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.