De or het?
Every Dutch noun takes de or het, and you cannot hear which one. Look up any word below, practise the 400 most common ones, and read the rules that actually hold up. Free, no account.
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De or het? Look up any Dutch noun
Nearly 96,000 nouns. If a word is missing, you still get the rule that applies to it.
Practice
Train it
400 of the most common nouns, in random order. No timer, take your time.
The honest version
Why de and het are so hard
Every Dutch noun is either a de-word or a het-word, and there is no way to hear which one it is. Native speakers do not know the rules either. They simply heard every word thousands of times before they turned six.
You did not. So you need something else.
Most websites hand you a list of rules and wish you luck. We did something different: we ran every rule on this page against our own list of 97,055 Dutch nouns to see how often it actually holds. The result is uncomfortable.
All those rules together are worth 3.6 percentage points. That is not a reason to skip them. It is a reason to learn the three that carry real weight, and stop worrying about the rest.
The rule that pays off
Compound words take the article of their last part
Dutch builds long words by gluing short ones together, and the article always comes from the final part.
- het beleid → het veiligheidsbeleid
- de directeur → de ziekenhuisdirecteur
- de stalling → de fietsenstalling
- het huis → het ziekenhuis
We tested this on long nouns from our list: it is right 98% of the time. This one rule beats every ending rule below, and it covers most of the Dutch you will actually read. Learn the short words well and the long ones come free.
Categories
Always het, always de
Always het
| Diminutives (-je, -tje, -pje, -kje) | het meisje, het huisje, het kopje |
| Languages | het Nederlands, het Engels, het Arabisch |
| Metals | het goud, het zilver, het ijzer |
| Compass directions | het noorden, het zuidwesten |
The diminutive rule has no exceptions at all. If you are stuck on a word, make it small: het is always right then.
Always de
| Every plural | het huis becomes de huizen |
| People and professions | de bakker, de dokter, de leraar, de student |
| Fruit, trees and plants | de appel, de eik, de varen |
| Rivers and mountains | de Waal, de Schelde, de Mount Everest |
| Numbers and letters | de vier, de x |
The plural rule is the easiest win on this page. Gender only exists in the singular, so half your problem disappears the moment a word becomes plural. Watch out for a few job titles that are neuter anyway: het Kamerlid, het afdelingshoofd.
Endings
Word endings, and how often they hold
Each percentage is measured on our list of 97,055 nouns.
| Ending | Article | Holds | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| -je, -tje, -pje, -kje | het | always | het meisje |
| -heid | de | 100% | de vrijheid |
| -teit, -iteit | de | 100% | de universiteit |
| -ing | de | 99% | de regering |
| -ie, -tie, -sie | de | 99% | de politie |
| -isme | het | 99% | het toerisme |
| -ment | het | 99% | het moment |
| -iek | de | 95% | de muziek |
| -nis | de | 95% | de kennis |
| -sel | het | 93% | het deksel |
| -um | het | 90% | het museum |
| -tuur, -suur | de | 89% | de natuur |
| -age | de | 89% | de bagage |
| -st | de | 87% | de dienst |
| -er, -aar, -eur, -ist | de | 84% | de bakker |
| be-, ge-, ver-, ont- | het | 78% | het verhaal |
The one everybody gets wrong: -schap
Most sources file -schap under the de-endings. Our list says otherwise: 63% of -schap words are het.
- het landschap, het gezelschap, het kampioenschap, het partnerschap, het voorzitterschap
- de wetenschap, de eigenschap, de vriendschap, de boodschap, de weddenschap
There is a pattern behind it. A -schap word that names a thing or a group tends to be het. One that names a quality or a relationship tends to be de. It is not watertight, so treat -schap as a coin flip and check the word.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is there a trick to know if a word is de or het?
One reliable one: if the word is a compound, use the article of its last part. Right 98% of the time. Beyond that, learn every noun together with its article from the very first time you see it. "Huis" is not a word you should ever store in your head. "Het huis" is.
What if I really do not know?
Say de. About seven in ten Dutch nouns are de-words, so you will be right more often than not. And in speech nobody stops the conversation over it.
Do de and het change in the plural?
No, plurals are always de. Het kind becomes de kinderen.
Does it matter for my inburgering exam?
For the speaking parts, hardly. Examiners score whether you get your message across. For the writing parts it counts more, because a wrong article is visible on paper. If you are preparing for A2 or B1, learn the articles of the words in your own daily life first: your house, your work, your family.
Why do Dutch people never make this mistake?
They do not know the rules. They just heard "het huis" so often that "de huis" sounds broken. That is also your route: repetition beats rules.
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