Written by When to use de and when to use het in Dutch? And what is ‘een’? Isn’t is the same as ‘één’? The Dutch articles cause the most stress for students of the Dutch language. And that isn’t strange at all, since there’s actually no other way of mastering these articles than to really learn Dutch. Talking about a language keeping it real, right? Luckily for you, LDO put together the essentials on how to use de and het in yet another colorful infographic. So you’ll never have to wonder again: is it de or het jongen (it is de jongen!). Enjoy!
Want more infographics on Dutch grammar like this one? For example on ‘Er’? Click here!
As you can see in the above infographic, you just have to learn the definite Dutch articles with their respective proper nouns. For example:
- De auto (the car); auto always goes with de
- Het boek (the book); boek always goes with het
- Het probleem (the problem); probleem always goes with het
- De vrouw (the woman); vrouw always goes with de
Some teachers of Dutch will tell you that you can know when to use het or de; but afterwards they will always say there are exceptions to these ‘rules’ – which are actually just guidelines. If you’re just starting to learn Dutch, it’s best to keep things tight and simple, in order to build a solid foundation first. Hence, we at LDO just tell you the rules as straight as possible – and that boils down to: learn, study, dream, breathe the Dutch nouns with their articles! Good luck!