de of het spoedgeval?
het spoedgeval
emergency
noun
It is “het spoedgeval”. The plural is “de spoedgevallen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: spoedgeval
Forms
- Article
- het spoedgeval
- Plural
- de spoedgevallen
- Diminutive
- het spoedgevalletje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Dit is een spoedgeval.
This is an emergency.
Dat is geen spoedgeval.
That is not an emergency.
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 spoedgeval” rather than as “spoedgeval” 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.