de of het uur?
het uur
hour
noun · /yr/
It is “het uur”. The plural is “de uren”, and like every Dutch plural it takes “de”.
Pronunciation, example sentences and the rest of the entry: uur
Forms
- Article
- het uur
- Plural
- de uren
- Diminutive
- het uurtje
- Also means
- period of time, time of day, o'clock
- How common
- among the 1,000 most common Dutch words
In a sentence
Ze komt over een uur.
She's coming in an hour.
Wat doe jij op dit uur nog wakker?
What are you doing still awake at this hour?
Het is twaalf uur.
It is twelve o'clock.
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 uur” rather than as “uur” 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.