{"id":1063,"date":"2011-01-25T15:28:35","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T15:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=1063"},"modified":"2011-11-30T10:53:16","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T10:53:16","slug":"de-or-het-knowing-when-to-use-which","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/de-or-het-knowing-when-to-use-which\/","title":{"rendered":"De or Het?  Knowing When to Use Which"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_1070\" style=\"width: 146px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft post-item__attachment\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sxc.hu\/photo\/1323680\" aria-label=\"1323680 Question Mark\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1070\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1070    \"  alt=\"\" width=\"136\" height=\"118\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2011\/01\/1323680_question_mark.jpg\"><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1070\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image Credit: 7rains<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In Dutch there are two definite articles (words that mean &#8216;the&#8217;). \u00a0These are <em>de<\/em> and <em>het<\/em>. \u00a0The article <em>de<\/em> is for masculine and feminine nouns. \u00a0These are also known as common nouns. \u00a0The article <em>het\u00a0<\/em>is for neuter words.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing when a word is common or neuter is one of the challenges in learning Dutch, as there are no hard and fast rules. \u00a0However, learning which words are common and which are neuter is a worthwhile area to invest your time in because it does affect other aspects of the language.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>While there are no set rules as such, there are some patterns and hints that you can keep in mind when struggling to pick the correct definite article:<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>the number of <em>de<\/em>-words is about twice as large as the number of <em>het<\/em>-words, so when in doubt pick <em>de<\/em><\/li>\n<li>plural nouns have the definite article <em>de<\/em> (<em>het boek<\/em> becomes <em>de boeken<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>the gender of a compound noun is determined by the gender of the second word (<em>de wijn<\/em> + <em>het glas<\/em> = <em>het wijnglas<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>diminutives (indicating that something is small, usually by adding -je to the end of a word) have the definite article <em>het<\/em> (<em>de tomaat<\/em> becomes <em>het tomatje<\/em>)<\/li>\n<li>colours and languages usually take <em>het<\/em><\/li>\n<li>nouns referring to people typically take <em>de<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div>Some things that people have found helpful when learning <em>de<\/em> and <em>het<\/em> words are:<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>to learn the definite article when you learn the noun<\/li>\n<li>to make a list of all the neuter nouns you come across, since these are less it is easier to keep track of them<\/li>\n<li>a dictionary should tell you if a noun is neuter, feminine or masculine. \u00a0This is often done via a letter next to the noun: \u00a0neuter: &#8216;o&#8217; for <em>onzijdig<\/em>, feminine: \u00a0&#8216;v&#8217; for <em>vrouwelijk<\/em>,\u00a0masculine: \u00a0&#8216;m&#8217; for <em>mannelijk<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div>Have you noticed any other patterns with <em>de<\/em> or <em>het<\/em> words? \u00a0Do you have another tip for keeping track of the different sets? \u00a0Do let us know.<\/div>\n<div>If you would like some practise, work through the following list and identify if the words are <em>de<\/em> or <em>het<\/em> words. \u00a0If you don&#8217;t know the meaning of a word, this is a great time to look its meaning up as well. \u00a0 I&#8217;ll post the answers later.<\/div>\n<div>\n<ol>\n<li>toilet<\/li>\n<li>papier<\/li>\n<li>toiletpapier<\/li>\n<li>koffie<\/li>\n<li>melk<\/li>\n<li>koffiemelk<\/li>\n<li>poeder<\/li>\n<li>suiker<\/li>\n<li>poedersuiker<\/li>\n<li>aardappel<\/li>\n<li>salade<\/li>\n<li>aardappelsalade<\/li>\n<li>chocolade<\/li>\n<li>vla<\/li>\n<li>chocoladevla<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>Sarah also wrote a post on definite articles last year. \u00a0If you are looking for more tips or just another wording of what de and het are all about, then <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/de-and-het-words-also-known-as-definite-articles\/\" target=\"_blank\">check it out<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"300\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2011\/01\/1323680_question_mark.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><p>In Dutch there are two definite articles (words that mean &#8216;the&#8217;). \u00a0These are de and het. \u00a0The article de is for masculine and feminine nouns. \u00a0These are also known as common nouns. \u00a0The article het\u00a0is for neuter words. Knowing when a word is common or neuter is one of the challenges in learning Dutch, as&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/de-or-het-knowing-when-to-use-which\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":1070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[27710,3590,27711],"tags":[13469,3605,13468,13470],"class_list":["post-1063","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dutch-grammar","category-dutch-language","category-dutch-vocabulary-2","tag-de","tag-definite-articles","tag-het","tag-the"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1063"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1731,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1063\/revisions\/1731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}