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Tag Archives: de

April Fools!!! – But why? Posted by on Apr 1, 2014

Op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril – with this phrase, the watergeuzen made fun of general Alva of Spain when they took his city Den Briel (therefore zijn bril) on April 1, 1572. Watergeuzen are  what you could call “Water Beggars”. “Water”, because they came by their ships in the North Sea. They basically were Dutch civilians fighting…

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The De vs. Het Dilemma Solved… (Well, Almost) Posted by on Aug 21, 2013

‘De’ or ‘het’? The lack of hard and fast rules makes this one of life’s great enigmas. Loads of Dutch language learners (myself included) search far and wide for an explanation. Some trick or secret that will eliminate the de vs. het dilemma. The thing is… there isn’t one. This is most likely something…

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10 Tips for Learning Dutch Posted by on Dec 27, 2012

New Year 2013

It is almost the start of a new year and for many people, learning a foreign language (or improving the one they are working on) will feature somewhere on the New Year’s resolution list. If that foreign language is Dutch, here are ten mini-tips about the language to get you started. 1. Dutch nouns have…

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De or Het? Knowing When to Use Which Posted by on Jan 25, 2011

In Dutch there are two definite articles (words that mean ‘the’).  These are de and het.  The article de is for masculine and feminine nouns.  These are also known as common nouns.  The article het is for neuter words. Knowing when a word is common or neuter is one of the challenges in learning Dutch, as…

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