A1 · Nouns: gender, plural, compounds · about 4 minutes
The plural
one word, nine endings
There is no default. The plural is learned with the noun, like the gender.
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“New to me”: the explanation first, then practice. “Test myself”: 3 short questions – get at least two right and you go straight to the harder exercises.
Words you will need1
They appear in this topic’s examples and exercises and are new at this point on the learning path.
- die Blumeflower
Understand
RememberEvery plural is die. In the dative it gains an -n.
- Signal words
- -e
- -er
- -en
- -n
- -s
- die
- Umlaut
The form
The patterns at a glance
Each row first says when or what the pattern is used for, then gives an example in German.
| -e, often with umlaut | der Tisch – die Tische, die Hand – die Hände |
| -er, umlaut where possible | das Kind – die Kinder, das Buch – die Bücher |
| -(e)n, no umlaut ever | die Lampe – die Lampen, die Frau – die Frauen |
| -s, mostly foreign words | das Auto – die Autos |
| no ending | das Fenster – die Fenster, der Vater – die Väter |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
Feminine nouns mostly take -n or -en, which never comes with an umlaut; a small group of short ones take -e or nothing plus an umlaut instead: Hand – Hände, Stadt – Städte, Mutter – Mütter.
die Blume – die Blumen, die Zeitung – die Zeitungenthe flower – the flowers, the newspaper – the newspapers
Nouns ending in -er, -el or -en usually add nothing.
das Fenster – die Fensterthe window – the windows
Every plural takes die, whatever the singular was.
der Mann – die Männerthe man – the men
In the dative plural the noun itself adds -n, unless the plural already ends in -n or -s.
mit den Kindernwith the children
Example sentences
Die Tische stehen im Garten.The tables are in the garden.
Wir haben zwei Kinder.We have two children.
Die Blumen brauchen Wasser.The flowers need water.
10 more example sentences
Beide Autos sind alt.Both cars are old.
Er spricht mit den Nachbarn.He is talking to the neighbours.
Die Bücher liegen auf dem Boden.The books are lying on the floor.
Wie viele Zimmer hat die Wohnung?How many rooms does the flat have?
Die Häuser hier sind sehr alt.The houses here are very old.
Sie hat drei Schwestern.She has three sisters.
Die Preise sind gestiegen.Prices have gone up.
Zwischen den Bäumen steht ein Zelt.There is a tent between the trees.
Die Ärztinnen haben eine Besprechung.The doctors have a meeting.
Wir haben keine Gläser mehr.We have no glasses left.
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
The dative plural adds an -n to the noun itself, on top of whatever the plural ending already is. It is the last surviving noun ending in German and it is easy to leave off, because it does almost no work — but it is heard. The exception is a plural that already ends in -n or -s: mit den Autos, not Autosn.
Quick check
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Practise
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Next on the path: 26 · Prepositions with the dativeBack to the learning path
The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
English has one plural ending and a dozen survivors. German has five endings — -e, -er, -(e)n, -s and none at all — each of which may or may not add an umlaut, which makes nine patterns in practice. There is no rule that picks between them for an unknown noun.
So the plural is learned with the word, the same way the gender is: der Tisch, die Tische. Dictionaries and the word lists on this site give it for that reason, and a noun learned without it is half learned.
Two facts make it manageable. Every plural takes die, whatever the singular gender was, so the article side of the plural is free. And gender predicts the ending fairly well: almost all feminine nouns take -(e)n, which is a large part of the vocabulary settled in one line.
A closer look
Why -s exists at all
The -s plural is not native to German. It arrived with borrowed words — das Auto, das Hotel, das Team, der Chef — and it stayed because it does something no other German plural does: it works on a word whose shape gives no clue what else to do with it.
That is why it is now the plural for abbreviations, for family names (die Müllers), and for anything new. A German speaker meeting an unfamiliar noun will reach for -s, which makes it the closest thing the language has to a default — but only for words that feel foreign, which is why applying it to ordinary German nouns sounds badly wrong.
Exceptions and special cases2
Exception
When the noun is a weak masculine — Student, Kunde, Herr, Junge, Nachbar
then the plural is -(e)n and so is every case except the nominative singular.
der Student – die Studententhe student – the students
Why? These nouns decline on the noun rather than only on the article.
Exception
When the noun exists only in the plural
then there is no singular to learn — Eltern, Ferien, Leute, Geschwister.
Meine Eltern kommen am Freitag.My parents are coming on Friday.
Why? They name things that come as a group, and German never made a singular for them.
Worth knowing2
Worth knowing
The umlaut is part of the plural, not decoration
In Hand – Hände and Buch – Bücher the vowel change carries as much of the plural as the ending does, and in Vater – Väter it carries all of it — there is no ending at all. English has the same thing in foot – feet and mouse – mice, which are the last few of a pattern German still uses in quantity.
der Vater – die Väter, die Tochter – die Töchterthe father – the fathers, the daughter – the daughters
Worth knowing
Measurements stay singular after a number
Masculine and neuter units of measure do not take a plural after a number: zwei Bier, drei Stück, fünf Euro, zehn Grad. Feminine units do: zwei Flaschen, drei Tassen. It is the one place where the gender changes what a number does.
Zwei Bier und drei Flaschen Wasser, bitte.Two beers and three bottles of water, please.
The verbs on this page, in every form: sein · kommen · stehen · brauchen · sprechen