# aardbei, het of de?



## MonsieurAquilone

Hey all.

Sorry for this basic question - but does 'aardbei' - 'strawberry' go with 'het' or 'de'.  Is there perhaps a rule with vowel-beginning words and the article that they take, or is it more or less random?


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## Grytolle

"De aardbei". All fruits and berries, except "appel", are feminine.

There are a handful of rules, but there's also lots of randomness.


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## MonsieurAquilone

Grytolle said:


> "de aardbei". All fruits and berries, except "appel", are feminine
> 
> there are a hand ful of rules, but there's also lots of randomness



Very useful, thank you very much!


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## Frank06

Hi,


MonsieurAquilone said:


> Is there perhaps a rule with vowel-beginning words and the article that they take, or is it more or less random?


Alas .


> Ongeveer een derde van alle zelfstandig naamwoorden zijn het-woorden. Er bestaan geen duidelijke richtlijnen om je te helpen bij het bepalen of een woord een het-woord is of een de-woord. Het is dus een kwestie van uit je hoofd leren.


Here you can find some (basic) guidelines.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## MonsieurAquilone

> Het is dus een kwestie van uit je hoofd leren.



It shall be put to good use! 

Bedankt.


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## Grytolle

Waarschuwinkje:

They mention -aat => het-word at that page, which isn't entirely true. While that pattern indeed exists, there are lots of exceptions. Unless I've missed any, those are all of them: http://www.unilang.org/wiki/index.php/Exceptions_to_-aat_words_being_Neuter_in_Dutch


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## paul72

Hi, 



			
				Grytolle said:
			
		

> All fruits and berries, except "appel", are feminine.


 
But it is also "de appel"... so don't know what the gender helps in this case, or appel is also just feminine...

succes, Paul


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## Lopes

paul72 said:


> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> But it is also "de appel"... so don't know what the gender helps in this case, or appel is also just feminine...
> 
> succes, Paul



Well, because it's feminine it can't be 'het aardbei'. 



Grytolle said:


> Waarschuwinkje:
> 
> Unless I've missed any, those are all of them: http://www.unilang.org/wiki/index.php/Exceptions_to_-aat_words_being_Neuter_in_Dutch



Are those all exceptions or just the rules for exceptions with some examples?


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## Grytolle

Lopes said:


> Are those all exceptions or just the rules for exceptions with some examples?


All exceptions I could find... I think my source was Vandale Hedendaags Nederlands from the year 2002. Not sure if I also looked through all words in the WNT. I don't really remember, since it was about 1.5 year ago

Edit: The bolded words were the ones I thought most important to memorize


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## Lopes

I missed 'fanaat', but as that would be in the category 'male/female persons' I didn't want to be called an ant-f*cker


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