Expressing Quantities of Food and Drink Items

Click to listen to the pronunciation of these terms.

die Tüte, die Tüten - the bag
die Tafel, die Tafeln - bar
die Flasche, die Flaschen - bottle
die Dose, die Dosen - can
das Glas, die Gläser - glass/jar
die Tasse, die Tassen - cup
die Packung, die Packungen - pack; packet
das Stück, die Stücke - piece
die Portion, die Portionen - portion

Rules for expressing quantity in German

Important: Please note that when asking for a quantity "of" something in German, the word for "of" is omitted, so we really just need to say, "two pounds ground meat, please, not two pounds OF ground meat: "Zwei Pfund Hackfleisch, bitte." See the examples below:

Examples of Expressing Quantity (singular)
English	German
a piece of cake	ein Stück Kuchen
a glass of water	ein Glas Wasser
a portion of french fries	eine Portion Pommes
a bottle of mineral water	eine Flasche Mineralwasser

Masculine and neuter nouns, such as das Stück, das Glas, etc. stay singular even if you are talking about more than one. Feminine nouns such as die Flasche, die Portion, etc, however, must be used in the plural. Look carefully at the examples below:

Examples of Expressing Quantities (multiples)
English	German
two pieces of cake	zwei Stück Kuchen (das Stück)
three glasses of water	drei Glas Wasser (das Glas)
two portions of french fries	zwei Portionen Pommes (die Portion)
four bottles of mineral water	vier Flaschen Mineralwasser (die Flasche)

Practice Activity

Fill in the blanks with the appropriate German translation of the words in parenthesis, but remember, some plural amounts are still expressed as singular and no word for OF is needed at all.

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