Adjective Agreement
Adjective Agreement
Dutch adjectives add a single -e ending in most positions, but stay bare in one specific spot — a habit English doesn't have at all, since English adjectives never change form.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Add -e before the noun in most cases
een grote hond (a big dog) / de grote hond (the big dog)
a big dog / the big dog
English adjectives never change form regardless of what they describe — 'big' stays 'big' whether it's one dog or ten. Most Dutch adjectives placed directly before a noun take an extra -e once the noun has any article at all — grote, not groot — so remembering to actually add the ending is a genuinely new habit to build.
The one exception: het + singular + een (indefinite)
een groot huis (a big house) — no -e, because huis is het and indefinite
a big house
There's exactly one situation where the adjective stays bare (no -e): a het-word, singular, with the indefinite article een (or no article at all) in front of it — een groot huis, not een grote huis. Switch to the definite article and the -e comes right back: het grote huis. This single carve-out is the whole exception to memorize; every other combination of de/het, singular/plural, and definite/indefinite takes -e.
Predicate adjectives (after a form of zijn) stay bare
De hond is groot. (The dog is big — groot, no -e, since it's not directly in front of the noun)
The dog is big.
When the adjective comes after the noun, linked by a form of zijn ('to be') rather than sitting directly in front of the noun, it drops the -e entirely: de hond is groot, not de hond is grote. English draws no such distinction — 'big' stays 'big' whether it's 'the big dog' or 'the dog is big' — so Dutch's attributive/predicate split is a new axis to track.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| Dutch | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| groot / grote | khroht / KHROH-teh | big |
| klein / kleine | klayn / KLAY-neh | small |
| mooi / mooie | moy / MOY-eh | pretty / nice |
| lang / lange | lahng / LAHNG-eh | tall / long |
| interessant / interessante | in-teh-reh-SAHNT / in-teh-reh-SAHN-teh | interesting |