de of het slop?
het slop
alley
noun · /slɔp/
It is “het slop”. The plural is “de sloppen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: slop
Forms
- Article
- het slop
- Plural
- de sloppen
- Diminutive
- het slopje
- Also means
- bad situation, very narrow street, back alley
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het bedrijf raakte in het slop door de crisis.
The company got into a bad situation due to the crisis.
We moeten hem uit het slop trekken.
We need to pull him out of the bad situation.
Ik zit al maanden in het slop.
I've been in a bad situation for months.
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 slop” rather than as “slop” 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.