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Around the house in Dutch

A room in Dutch is de kamer, plural de kamers, and a house is het huis, plural de huizen. Most rooms are compounds of kamer — de woonkamer (living room), de slaapkamer (bedroom), de badkamer (bathroom) — and they are all de-words because the last part of a compound decides the article. Below are rooms, furniture and household objects with articles and plurals, how to say where things are in a house, and the renting terms you'll meet in the Netherlands. Home vocabulary is also full of diminutives (het kopje, het tafeltje), and every diminutive is a het-word.

Rooms and parts of the house

Compounds ending in -kamer are all de-words (de slaapkamer, de badkamer). Watch het balkon and het toilet, which are het.

Types of home and floors

Dutch housing has its own categories, and adverts use them constantly. Note the floor numbering: de begane grond is the ground floor, and de eerste verdieping is the floor above it (British “first floor”, American “second floor”).

Structure: walls, doors and windows

Furniture

Almost all furniture is de, with het bed and het bureau the main het-words. Note the false friend de bank, which means both “sofa” and “bank”.

Kitchen and appliances

Describing a house: saying where the rooms are

To describe a home or give directions inside one, you need a small set of place words. Boven and beneden mean upstairs and downstairs; de trap op and de trap af mean up and down the stairs (the preposition comes after the noun when it expresses direction). For the logic of in, op and aan, see Dutch prepositions.

A short model description, the kind you'd give a guest or write in an email:

Als je binnenkomt, sta je in de gang. Links is de woonkamer en rechts is de keuken. Het toilet is aan het eind van de gang, naast de trap. Boven zijn drie slaapkamers en de badkamer. De tuin ligt aan de achterkant.

“When you come in, you're in the hallway. On the left is the living room and on the right is the kitchen. The toilet is at the end of the hallway, next to the stairs. Upstairs are three bedrooms and the bathroom. The garden is at the back.” Notice the inversion after Links, Boven and the als-clause: the verb stays in second position (see Dutch word order). For directions outside the house, go to asking for directions.

Living and housework verbs

Dutch distinguishes wonen (to live somewhere) from leven (to be alive): Ik woon in Utrecht, never ik leef in Utrecht in this sense.

A renting mini-glossary

Renting in the Netherlands has its own vocabulary, and getting it wrong costs money. The crucial distinction is how a place is let: kaal (bare — no flooring or curtains), gestoffeerd (with flooring and curtains but no furniture) or gemeubileerd (furnished).

Frequently asked questions

How do you say room in Dutch?

Room is de kamer, plural de kamers. Specific rooms are compounds: de woonkamer (living room), de slaapkamer (bedroom), de badkamer (bathroom). For “room” in the sense of space, use de ruimte: Is er nog ruimte? (Is there still room?).

Is huis a de or het word?

It is het huis, plural de huizen (the s becomes z in the plural). Thuis means “at home” and naar huis means “(to) home”.

How do you say upstairs and downstairs in Dutch?

Upstairs is boven and downstairs is beneden. With movement add naar: Ik ga naar boven (I'm going upstairs).

What is the first floor in Dutch?

De eerste verdieping is the floor above the ground floor, as in British English. The ground floor is de begane grond.

Is sofa bank or zetel in Dutch?

In the Netherlands a sofa is de bank; in Flanders it is usually de zetel. In the Netherlands de zetel means an armchair or a seat in parliament.

What does gezellig mean?

Gezellig describes a place or moment that is cosy, convivial and pleasant to be in together. A living room, a café or an evening with friends can all be gezellig.

Next, kit out the home with food and kitchen vocabulary, or step outside with travel and transport. The diminutives that fill this topic are explained in Dutch diminutives.