de of het telefoonboek?
het telefoonboek
phone book
noun · /teː.ləˈfoːnˌbuk/
It is “het telefoonboek”. The plural is “de telefoonboeken”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: telefoonboek
Forms
- Article
- het telefoonboek
- Plural
- de telefoonboeken
- Diminutive
- het telefoonboekje
- Also means
- telephone directory
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het telefoonboek ligt op de vensterbank.
The phone book is on the windowsill.
Zoek het adres op in het telefoonboek.
Look up the address in the phone book.
Heb jij het telefoonboek gezien?
Have you seen the phone book?
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 telefoonboek” rather than as “telefoonboek” 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.