de of het thuisfront?
het thuisfront
home front
noun · /ˈtœy̯s.frɔnt/
It is “het thuisfront”. The plural is “de thuisfronten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: thuisfront
Forms
- Article
- het thuisfront
- Plural
- de thuisfronten
- Diminutive
- het thuisfrontje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het thuisfront maakte zich grote zorgen.
The home front was very worried.
Hij belde elke week met het thuisfront.
He called the home front every week.
Het thuisfront gaf hem veel steun.
The home front gave him a lot of support.
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 thuisfront” rather than as “thuisfront” 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.