A great deal of fluent Dutch consists of nouns that started life as something else — a verb, an adjective, a whole phrase — repackaged to fill a noun slot. Roken ("to smoke") becomes het roken ("smoking"); mooi ("beautiful") becomes de schoonheid ("beauty") or het mooie ("the beautiful part"). This is nominalization, and the good news for a learner is that the main routes are regular and, crucially, each route comes with a predictable gender. Once you know that every nominalised infinitive is het and every -ing and -heid noun is de, you have solved the gender problem for an enormous class of words at a stroke. (This page covers the productive nominalising patterns; for the gender of other derivational suffixes see Suffixes and Gender, and for the fuller story of adjectives standing in for nouns see Adjectives as Nouns.)
The nominalised infinitive — always het
The single most productive pattern: take any infinitive and put het in front of it. The result is a neuter noun naming the activity — the Dutch equivalent of the English -ing gerund.
het + infinitive = the activity of X-ing
roken → het roken ("smoking"), zwemmen → het zwemmen ("swimming"), leven → het leven ("life/living"), wachten → het wachten ("the waiting"). The gender is invariable: every nominalised infinitive is a het-word, no exceptions. This is one of the most reliable gender rules in the whole language.
Het roken is hier sinds 2008 verboden.
Smoking has been banned here since 2008. — het roken = the activity of smoking.
Het zwemmen viel haar zwaar na de operatie.
Swimming was hard for her after the operation.
Het lange wachten begon iedereen op de zenuwen te werken.
The long wait was getting on everyone's nerves. — note the adjective takes -e: 'het lange wachten'.
The infinitive-noun maps almost perfectly onto the English -ing gerund: het zwemmen = "swimming," het lezen = "reading." Where English uses an -ing form as a noun ("I love reading"), Dutch uses het + infinitive (Ik hou van het lezen, or more often just the bare infinitive after the verb).
After a preposition: na het eten, bij het binnenkomen
The infinitive-noun shines after prepositions, where it expresses "after/on/while doing X." This is extremely common and very natural: na het eten ("after dinner/eating"), voor het slapen ("before sleeping"), bij het binnenkomen ("on entering"), tijdens het werken ("while working"). The het is obligatory here — the preposition needs a noun to govern, and the bare infinitive alone will not do.
Na het eten doen we samen de afwas.
After dinner we do the dishes together.
Bij het binnenkomen moet je je schoenen uitdoen.
On entering you have to take your shoes off.
Voor het slapengaan leest hij altijd nog even.
Before going to sleep he always reads for a bit.
Notice binnenkomen and slapengaan: when the verb has a separable prefix, the nominalised infinitive is written as one word (het binnenkomen, het slapengaan), not split. The prefix glues to the front of the whole infinitive-noun.
The -ing deverbal noun — always de
The second great route turns a verb into a noun of result or process by adding -ing to the stem: verbouwen ("to renovate") → de verbouwing ("the renovation"), uitnodigen ("to invite") → de uitnodiging ("the invitation"), openen ("to open") → de opening ("the opening"). Every -ing noun is a de-word — again no exceptions.
De verbouwing van onze keuken duurt al maanden.
The renovation of our kitchen has been going on for months.
Heb je de uitnodiging voor het feest al ontvangen?
Have you received the invitation to the party yet?
De opening van de tentoonstelling is volgende week.
The opening of the exhibition is next week.
The difference from the infinitive-noun is one of meaning, not just gender. Het bouwen ("the building/the activity of building") names the ongoing action; de bouw / de verbouwing names the project or result. Many verbs have both: het verbouwen (the act) alongside de verbouwing (the renovation as a thing). English often blurs these into one -ing form; Dutch keeps the activity (het + infinitive) and the result-noun (de -ing) formally apart.
The -heid abstract from adjectives — always de
To turn an adjective into an abstract noun ("the quality of being X"), Dutch adds -heid: schoon / mooi → de schoonheid ("beauty"), waar → de waarheid ("truth"), eerlijk → de eerlijkheid ("honesty"), vrij → de vrijheid ("freedom"). This is the Dutch counterpart of English -ness and -ity, and every -heid noun is a de-word. Its plural is irregular and worth noting: -heid → -heden (de waarheid → de waarheden).
De waarheid is soms moeilijker te accepteren dan een leugen.
The truth is sometimes harder to accept than a lie.
Eerlijkheid duurt het langst, zei mijn oma altijd.
Honesty lasts longest, my grandma always said. (a fixed proverb)
Er bestaan veel waarheden, niet één.
There are many truths, not just one. — note the -heden plural.
Adjectives and participles as nouns
A bare adjective can step into a noun slot, and the gender it takes signals what kind of thing it names. Two patterns matter:
- People → de (with -e): a definite adjective used for a person becomes a de-word. ziek → de zieke ("the sick person/patient"), oud → de oude ("the old one"), jong → de jongere ("the young person"). Plural: de zieken, de ouderen.
- Abstract concepts and "the X part" → het (with -e): the same adjective with het names an abstraction or "the X aspect of it." goed → het goede ("the good," "the good part"), mooi → het mooie ("the beautiful part"), nieuw → het nieuwe ("what's new").
De zieke mag morgen weer naar huis.
The patient can go home again tomorrow. — de zieke = the sick person.
Het mooie ervan is dat het niets kost.
The nice thing about it is that it costs nothing. — het mooie ervan = the beautiful part of it.
In elke situatie zoekt zij het goede.
In every situation she looks for the good. — het goede = the good (abstract).
So de zieke (a person) and het zieke would point at completely different things — the gender carries the meaning. This is a productive, living pattern; the deeper treatment, including the iets/niets/wat moois construction, is in Adjectives as Nouns.
A quick gender map
Because gender is the practical payoff of this page, here it is in one table:
| Route | From | Gender | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| het + infinitive | verb | het | het roken, het zwemmen |
| stem + -ing | verb | de | de opening, de verbouwing |
| adjective + -heid | adjective | de | de schoonheid, de waarheid |
| de + adjective + -e (person) | adjective | de | de zieke, de ouderen |
| het + adjective + -e (abstract) | adjective | het | het goede, het mooie |
Common Mistakes
❌ Roken is hier verboden — geschreven als kop, prima; maar 'Ik geniet van zwemmen.'
The bare infinitive is fine after a verb, but as a full subject/object noun the natural form takes het.
✅ Ik geniet van het zwemmen.
I enjoy swimming. — the nominalised infinitive after a preposition needs het.
❌ na eten, voor slapen (preposition + bare infinitive)
Wrong — after a preposition the infinitive-noun needs het: na het eten, voor het slapen.
✅ na het eten, voor het slapen
after dinner, before sleeping.
❌ de zwemmen / de roken (wrong gender on the infinitive-noun)
Wrong — every nominalised infinitive is het: het zwemmen, het roken.
✅ het zwemmen, het roken
swimming, smoking.
❌ het opening, het uitnodiging (wrong gender on -ing nouns)
Wrong — every -ing deverbal noun is de: de opening, de uitnodiging.
✅ de opening, de uitnodiging
the opening, the invitation.
❌ het binnen komen (separable prefix split off)
Wrong — the nominalised infinitive of a separable verb is written as one word: het binnenkomen.
✅ bij het binnenkomen
on entering.
Key Takeaways
- The nominalised infinitive (het
- infinitive) is the Dutch gerund — the activity of X-ing — and is always het: het roken, het zwemmen, bij het binnenkomen.
- After a preposition it is obligatory: na het eten, voor het slapen; separable verbs stay one word (het binnenkomen).
- The -ing deverbal noun names a process or result and is always de: de opening, de verbouwing, de uitnodiging.
- The -heid abstract from adjectives is always de (plural -heden): de schoonheid, de waarheid, de waarheden.
- An adjective as noun is de for a person (de zieke) and het for an abstraction (het goede, het mooie ervan) — the gender carries the meaning.
Now practice Dutch
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Start learning Dutch→Related Topics
- Noun Suffixes and GenderB1 — Dutch noun suffixes are the single most reliable shortcut to de/het. Suffixes like -ing, -heid, -tie, -teit, and -ist make de-words; suffixes like -je, -sel, -isme, -ment, and -um make het-words. This page gives the full tables, the one genuine trap (-schap, which is mostly de but het in landschap), and how to use suffixes to predict an article you have never heard.
- Adjectives Used as NounsB2 — How a Dutch adjective becomes a noun: an inflected adjective stands in for a person (de zieke, een onbekende), het + adjective names an abstract quality (het goede), and the surprising -s after iets/niets/wat/veel (iets moois, niets nieuws) is a genitive relic you must drill.
- De-words and Het-words: Noun GenderA1 — Dutch has a two-way gender system: common-gender de-words (about two-thirds of nouns, from the merged old masculine and feminine) and neuter het-words (a closed-ish minority worth memorising). Gender fixes the article, both demonstratives, the relative pronoun and the adjective ending — and the plural article is always de.
- Gender of Compounds and Derived NounsB1 — How Dutch assigns de/het to multi-part nouns — the head-final rule for compounds and the suffix-decides rule for derived nouns — so you can guess the gender of a word you've never seen.
- Dutch Nouns: OverviewA1 — A map of the Dutch noun system — every noun has a gender (de or het), a plural (mostly -en or -s, sometimes with a trema or apostrophe), and a diminutive (always het) — and a routing guide to the detailed pages, built around the one fact that gender is the master property to memorise per word.