FAM: Plural of Nouns

Plural of Nouns

How do you make the plural of nouns and definite and indefinite articles in German?

Plural of Nouns and definite articles "der, die, das"

In the Foundations module we learned that the singular, nominative (subject) forms of the definite article (the) are der, die or das, while the indefinite articles (a / an) are ein or eine depending on the gender of the given noun.

Remember those?

• the / a table = der / ein Tisch (masculine)
• the / a lamp = die / eine Lampe (feminine)
• the / a book = das / ein Buch (neuter)

Now, we will focus on how to express German nouns in their plural forms. 

How do you say "the tables, the lamps, the books" in German? Look at the examples below. Do you see any patterns in English and German for creating plural forms?

Singular and Plural Nouns - Comparison
Singular	Plural
the table = der Tisch (masculine)	the tables = die Tische
the lamp = die Lampe (feminine)	the lamps = die Lampen
the book = das Buch (neuter)	the books = die Bücher

Plural Nouns - Endings

Whereas in English, plurals are typically formed by adding -s or -es to a word, German has a number of different ways to designate plurals. In fact, it is useful to note that very few German nouns form their plural using an -s suffix. 

Plural Noun Endings
Singular	Plural
der Tisch	die Tische
die Lampe	die Lampen
das Buch	die Bücher
das Radio	die Radios
das Fenster (the window)	die Fenster (the windows)

German uses five basic types of signals to mark the plural of nouns: -e, -er, -(e)n, -s and sometimes no ending at all. Thankfully, the definite article for all plurals remains die in both the nominative (subject) and accusative (direct object) forms.

Sometimes umlauts are also added in the plural, usually to the middle or stem vowel. Look at the examples above.

Vocabulary - Noun Entries

Since there is no sure way to predict in all cases to what plural type the noun belongs to, when you learn a German noun, you must also learn its plural form.

In this course, every time you learn a new word, the plural form will usually be written after it. You may also see the plural form of a noun indicated after a comma like in the examples below:

• der Tisch, e ("der" goes to "die" and you add an "-e" to the word Tisch = die Tische)
• das Buch, ¨ er ("das" becomes "die" and an "-er" and an umlaut are added to the word Buch = die Bücher)
• das Fenster, - ("das" changes to "die" and the word Fenster stays the same = die Fenster)

A good way to help you understand the plural of German nouns is to think about the English plural of words such as "child", "mouse", "foot", "man", and "deer".

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