'De' words

[Trellum]

I made a short list to remind me when DE must be used There are many cases in which 'De'' must be used, actually about 75% of words are what I like to call ''De words''. Here is a short list with useful reminders of when and what kind of words are ''De'' words.

1 - ALL plurals.

2- All the professions.

3- Obviously masculine or feminine words (there are exceptions, ie: het miesje)

4- Vegetables, fruits, plants, trees, names of mountains and rivers.

5- Nouns ending in -tie, -thie,-sie, -aar, -eur, -er and -or.

6- Words ending with: -ie, -ij, -heid, -teit, -a, -nis, -st, -schap, -de, -te, -iek, -ica, -theek, -iteit, -tuur, -stuur, -sis, -xis, -tis, -ade, -ide, -ode, -ude, -age, -ine, -se, -ea, -esse.

7 - Written out numbers and letters.

If any native speaker notices a mistake, please feel free to correct me

[PixelBaebee]

Thanks! This actually helps a lot. I have trouble with de/het and adjectives. Having a well-defined list to study off of will make it easier for me to differentiate between them.

Wouldn't it be easier to have a list of "het" words though, since it's a smaller percentage so it'd be easier to remember the rules for fewer words. Something like "These are the few things we need to remember, and everything else* is 'de'"

[Trellum]

You are welcome!  Don't worry, I mentioned I'd add a 'HET words' list as well, and I will  I actually will do it today, I just finished the list and will gladly post it here   So stay tuned and check it out!  And by the way, sadly isn't as simple as this:

"These are the few things we need to remember, and everything else* is 'de'"

Because you need to pay attention to the word endings as well and there are some exceptions. But let's not think about the exceptions   Right now all I'm doing is trying to remember those rules  

[Daedalus]

3- Obviously masculine or feminine words (there are exceptions, ie: het miesje)

Small typo there, it's spelled 'meisje'.

Just to clarify: 'meisje', meaning 'girl' is linguistically speaking neutral gender, because it is a diminutive word. All diminutive words are neutral, and therefore always are het words.

Just like: de hond / het hondje.

Notice diminutive words end in -je (sometimes -tje, depending on pronunciation).

[Trellum]

Thank you for the correction!  I missed that one!  I supposed meisje was a het word because of the ''je'' ending. But to be honest that was my only clue, lol, because I can't really tell the gender of dutch words yet, I mean, for us (Spanish speakers) the gender is clear. I need to stop thinking in Spanish and more in dutch! 

Thanks for letting me now and glad to see you are back I hope you and I can ''chat'' in dutch over here very soon   I'm trying really hard to learn it, using Duolingo right now

[Daedalus]

Yes, the root word is 'de meid' (which of course is feminine, so it's a 'de'-word), but the meaning is slightly different. Meid can mean 'maid', as in 'room maid', but it's also used to signify the girl is more grown up.

Sure, feel free to contact me, I'm interested in your progress. But I'm sure your Dutch is much better than my Spanish

[Trellum]

Ah!!!!!!!!!! That explains it all!!!! So, the diminutive -je ending was added to make it more clear we are talking about a small girl!  Like in the sentence ''Het meisje is een kind''.  I have a lot to learn, this language is really tricky! I'm still trying to find my way around, but I have to make it! I'm going hardcore on this! But tell me something... maybe as a native speaker you can explain it...

When is ok to use ''Je'' instead of ''Jiij''?  I'm still having a hard time with that, I really don't see the difference sometime, specially with ''Ze'' and ''We''.