de of het traject?
het traject
route
noun
It is “het traject”. The plural is “de trajecten”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: traject
Forms
- Article
- het traject
- Plural
- de trajecten
- Diminutive
- het trajectje
- How common
- in everyday Dutch
In a sentence
Het traject is behoorlijk lang.
The route is quite long.
Kies het kortste traject.
Choose the shortest route.
Het traject loopt door de stad.
The route runs through the city.
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 traject” rather than as “traject” 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.