About de en het

One of the most frustrating things for those who learn Dutch at an adult age, is knowing when a word is a het word and when it is a de word. I'm not going to tell here that there is a method that deletes all frustrations, but I do have a few hints that should make it a bit easier. To begin with the reason for all this: there are masculine words, feminine words and neuter words. All masculine and feminine words get de while all neuter words get het. A good way to remember this is simply to:

 

• think of 'the man, the woman and the child', since this will be: de man, de vrouw en het kind.

 

Though there is mostly not a very good reason for things to bemasculine, feminine or neuter there are a few indications:

 

• all words that are made smaller with (e)(t)jeare neuter (de vrouw - het vrouwtje, de man - hetmannetje),
• practically all words that and on standard suffixeslike -ing, -ij, -ie, -e and -heid are feminine(de vereniging, de bakkerij, de politie, de dame, demoeilijkheid),
• all infinite verbs used as nouns are neuter (het eten,het fietsen),
• words starting with standard prefixes like ge-, ver,ont- and be- and not ending on -ing areneuter (het gevaar, het verhaal, het ontzag, hetbeslag),
• words ending on -el or -er are quiteoften de-words (de tafel, de beker),
• buildings, however, are often het-words (het theater, het huis, het station - just not debioscoop, since that ends on -scoop, which is oneof those standard suffixes),
• in plural all words get de (de vrouwtjes, deboeken)
• and, naturally, all words referring to persons(individuals) are de-words (de minister, debakker).

 

Now, you could decide not to bother, producing a soundsomewhere between de en het (...edth...)in case of doubt, but think of the consequences of the difference:

 

• meaning 'this' and 'that', de-words get dezeand die, while het-words get dit anddat,
• meaning 'which' (or sometimes 'what'), de-wordsget welke and het words get welk,
• meaning 'our', de-words get onze, whilehet-words get ons,
• adjectives end on an extra e (always pronounced inDutch!) standing before a noun, except when this is anindefinite (using een) het-word: de groene pen, een groene pen, het groeneboek, een groen boek).

 

If the learning of this de/het difference is reallyimportant to you, I would advise you to make a list of allhet-words you find: there are less of them then there are de-words.

 

Finally, when you really need to know, look in yourdictionary. When it doesn't say straightforward if the wordsare de or het, it might very well tell you indirectly, by putting (m), (v), or (o) behindthe word. Since the m stands for mannelijk(masculine), the v for vrouwelijk (feminine) and theo for onzijdig (neuter) you'll know what to use.And for words having two or even three of those, like affiche (o&v(m)), you are free make your own choice.