De or het? Find the right Dutch article

Why de and het are hard

Dutch has two words for "the": de and het. About 7 out of 10 nouns in our database take de; the rest take het. There is no complete rule, so most learners simply memorise the article with each word. A few patterns help a lot, though:

• Plurals always take de: het huis, de huizen. Read more
• Diminutives always take het: de tafel, het tafeltje. Read more
• Words ending in -ing, -heid, -tie take de: de woning, de vrijheid, de informatie. See all rules
• Compound words follow their last part: het huis, so het tuinhuis. Read more