de of het stadhuis?
het stadhuis
town hall
noun · /stɑtˈɦœy̯s/
It is “het stadhuis”. The plural is “de stadhuizen”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: stadhuis
Forms
- Article
- het stadhuis
- Plural
- de stadhuizen
- Diminutive
- het stadhuisje
- Also means
- city hall
- How common
- among the 10,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Het stadhuis staat aan het grote plein.
The town hall is located on the large square.
We moeten naar het stadhuis voor ons nieuwe paspoort.
We have to go to the town hall for our new passport.
Het historische stadhuis is een prachtig gebouw.
The historic town hall is a beautiful building.
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 stadhuis” rather than as “stadhuis” 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.