There are three articles in the dutch language de, het and een.
Een is an indefinite article. Essentially you would translate de and het as the in English., and een as a or an.
Use of indefinite article een
Een can be used only in front of single countable nouns (table, chair, horse, spoon)
People use indefinite articles when they assume you do not know what they are talking about or when they are generalizing.
They found a body in the river.
Ze vonden een lichaam in de rivier.
You do not know whose body.
A dog is a huge responsibility.
Een hond is een enorme verantwoordelijkheid.
A general statement the parents use before buying a puppy.
Use of definite dutch articles de and het
The article de is for masculine and feminine (or common)nouns, and the article het is for neuter nouns.
How to know which noun is a de-word or a het-word? Memorize it when learning the noun. De-words in dutch are twice as much as the het-words if that helps you. You can start memorizing and paying special attention to the het words – like on your head there is the eye (het oog) and the ear – (het oor). and all other parts are de-words. So you only need to remember that the eye and the ear are different.
In the plural, all nouns have the definite article de. So you have de ogen and de oren.
As in any other language, people use the definite article when they expect you to now the subject they are talking about.
There is a school in our dorp. Peter likes the school a lot.
Er is een school in onze dorp. Peter vindt de school heel leuk.
In the first senctence the speaker points the school in the village using an indefinite article because you do not know that there is a school at all. Then he tells you about Peter’s feelings about that same school using a definite article because you already know about it.
NOTE: If the noun is uncountable (for example suiker, water, koffie, thee), it appears without an article.
Exercises on dutch articles
For compiling this dutch grammar article I used the following grammar books :
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