de of het spaakbeen?
het spaakbeen
radius
noun
It is “het spaakbeen”. The plural is “de spaakbeenderen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: spaakbeen
Forms
- Article
- het spaakbeen
- Plural
- de spaakbeenderen
- Diminutive
- het spaakbeentje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Hij heeft zijn spaakbeen gebroken.
He has broken his radius.
Ik voel een pijn in mijn spaakbeen.
I feel a pain in my radius.
Het spaakbeen is een bot in de arm.
The radius is a bone in the arm.
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 spaakbeen” rather than as “spaakbeen” 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.