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Short     De and  Het — The Article in Dutch
Dutch has 'de' click to hear 2 and 'het' click to hear 2 3 for the definite article 'the.'
Plurals always take 'de'  and diminutives 'verkleinwoordjes' click to hear 2 3 4 (words ending in -je)  always take 'het'  but there are no other good rules for which words take 'het'  — you'll just have to memorize the 'het'-words — about a third of Dutch nouns.
'Het'  is often pronounced as " 't " click to hear with 'voiceless, unstressed E' click to hear (the 'schwa') but it's not often written that way.

The indefinite artice 'a' — Dutch 'een' click to hear is contrary to spelling rules pronounced with 'voiceless, unstressed E' click to hear (the 'schwa') and not the 'long E' click to hear you'd expect from the spelling — but it's almost never written that way as " 'n " click to hear .
'One, #1, quantity: one' is written as één click to hear 2 3

De / het  is also important with adjectives:
Adjectives in most cases have an E-ending click to hear — except when used for 'het-words' in the singular after een / 'n click to hear - geen click to hear ('no, not a,' zero quantity) or no article, for instance:

het lange verhaal click to hear the long story
een lang verhaal click to hear a long story
geen lang verhaal click to hear not a long story
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Gij zult niet stelen click to hear 'Thou shalt not steal'