In Dutch there is only one indefinite article. This article is een. It doesn’t matter whether the noun is a de noun or a het noun. For example, ‘a woman’ is een vrouw, (de noun) and ‘a house’ is een huis (het noun). It will both be een no matter what. Also, in English, we distinguish a difference between ‘a’ and ‘an’. In Dutch there is no difference between ‘a’ or ‘an’. There is obviously no plural because whenever you use ‘a’ you are referring to a single object.

In Dutch, you don’t use indefinite articles when you’re stating your profession. For example, in English, you’d say, He is a doctor. In Dutch, you’d say, Hij is dokter, without the indefinite article.

For the most part English and Dutch use the indefinite articles in the same way.

In Dutch, there is also a special negative of een. This form is called geen. The sentence ‘This is not a car’ will be ‘dit is geen auto’ in Dutch. This sentence in the affirmative would be, dis is een auto, or this is a car.

Remember that één is different from een. For example ‘one elephant’ in Dutch is één olifant. In English één olifant would not be ‘an elephant’ but one elephant.

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