De or het crèche?

Forms

Singular

de crèche

Plural

de crèches

Why de?

• No reliable spelling rule decides this one, so de crèche is learned together with the word.
• Every plural takes de, so it is de crèches whatever the singular takes.

The rules for de and het, with the exceptions

Meaning in English

1. a day nursery for small children until age 3 in Belgium (Flanders) or age 4 in the Netherlands, when the children begin kleuterschool (nursery school/kindergarten) or, in the Netherlands, basisschool (primary school, which, in the Netherlands, begins at age 4 since August 1985, when kleuterschool was abolished and became a compulsory part of the primary school)