De- en het-woorden
Every Dutch noun is a de-word or a het-word, and that choice decides the adjective ending and the word for "this".
There is no rule that tells you which article a noun takes — it is learned per word, and roughly two thirds are de. What makes this worth a lesson at A2 is not the article itself but what hangs off it: the adjective ending, deze against dit, and die against dat. Getting the article wrong therefore shows up three times in one sentence, which is why it is visible to a marker who is not looking for it.
How the exam tests this
Schrijven, handwritten. It is not marked as a grammar item — nothing on the paper asks you to name an article — but it is part of "is this understandable Dutch", and the visible symptom is the adjective: `een groot huis` against `een grote kamer`. It also matters in Lezen more than learners expect, because die and dat are how a text refers back to something, and picking the wrong referent changes which fact you have read.
What is wrong with this sentence?
Wij zoeken een grote huis met een groot tuin.
Most candidates write it exactly like this and lose the mark without knowing why.
The rest of this lesson
The rule, the worked examples, the exceptions and what to do in the exam room open with Mastery, together with every other lesson for this exam.
See plans