Plural nouns: How to form, recognize, and use them in German?

In German, there are a few different ways to form plural nouns (nouns for more than one of something). Here are the most common:

• No change:

  der Maler → die Maler

  the painter → the painters

• Add an ending (-e, -en, -n, -er, -nen, -se, or -s):

  das Boot → die Boote

  the boat → the boats

• Add an umlaut:

  der Vater → die Väter

  the father → the fathers

• Add an umlaut and an ending:

  das Tal → die Täler

  valley → valleys

Though there are some plural rules you can practice, in a lot of cases you’ll just have to memorize German plural forms. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to recognize plurals, or learn some tips and tricks that will help you remember them! Ready to get started? Let’s go!

The following table shows the most common ways to form the plural in German.

Does this seem a bit hard? Good news: There are many good tricks to recognize and learn plurals with ease. Let’s dive into the easy way to learn plurals.

To learn plurals with ease, remember there are three parts: rule awareness, memorization, plural awareness.

• Rule Awareness: Know some plural rules

  Some plural rules in German are practical, easy to apply, and apply to a good number of nouns. It’s helpful to know the plural rules below.

  Tip

  Some of the plural rules depend on a noun’s grammatical gender (masculine, feminine, neuter). To review the meaning of this, check out our post on grammatical gender in German.

  • All nouns ending in -heit, -keit-, -schaft, and -ung form their plural by adding -en.

    • die Wahrheit → die Wahrheiten

      truth → truths

    • die Ähnlichkeit → die Ähnlichkeiten

      similarity → similarities

    • die Freundschaft → die Freundschaften

      friendship → friendships

    • die Zeitung → die Zeitungen

      newspaper → newspapers

  • All nouns referring to female beings that end in -in form their plural by adding -nen.

    • die Ärztin → die Ärztinnen

      female doctor → female doctors

    • die Wölfin → die Wölfinnen

      female wolf → female wolves

  • All nouns ending in -is form their plural by adding -se.

    • das Ereignis → die Ereignisse

      event → events

  • All nouns ending in -e form their plural by adding -n.

    • die Tasche → die Taschen

      bag → bags

  • All feminine nouns ending in -el and most of those ending in -er add -n.

    • die Hummel → die Hummeln

      bumble bee → bumble bees

    • die Klammer → die Klammern

      bracket → brackets

  • Most masculine nouns ending in -er, -en, and -el keep the singular form (these may also have an umlaut).

    • der Arbeiter → die Arbeiter_

      worker → workers

    • der Wagen → die Wagen_

      cart → carts

    • der Hebel → die Hebel_

      lever → levers

  • All nouns ending in -chenor -lein also keep the singular form.

    • das Mädchen → die Mädchen_

      girl → girls

    • das Vöglein → die Vöglein_

      little bird → little birds

    Exception!

    Some common nouns don’t play by these last two rules:

    der Bauer → die Bauern

    farmer → farmers

    die Mutter → die Mütter

    mother → mothers

  • Most nouns ending in a vowel other than -e form their plural with -s. These words are usually loan words.

    • das Taxi → die Taxis

      taxi cab → taxi cabs

    • das Radio → die Radios

      radio → radios

  Check out this chart of German plural rules, which you can use as a study resource. It contains all the common rules above, plus some less common generalizations as well.

• Memorization: Memorize the plural form

  In many cases you will just need to memorize the plural forms of German nouns. This is because there is either no rule to learn, or the rule is so rare that it’s not really worth learning.

  Luckily, “unpredictable” nouns in German tend to have some shared features:

  • Most often, the singular ends in a consonant

  • Most often they are pluralized by adding -e, -er, or -en or by adding an umlaut to an a, o, or u in the to become ä, ö, or ü.

  So, while these nouns might be “unpredictable,” in that you can’t predict which ending you’ll use, they’re generally still recognizable as plurals, because they have one of the “expected” forms. Here are some examples of nouns like this:

  • Plurals with no umlaut:

    • -en:

      das Bett → die Betten

      bed → beds

    • -e:

      das Bett → die Betten

      bed → beds

    • -er:

      der Leib → die Leiber

      body → bodies

  • Plurals with an umlaut:

    • ⸚ + -e:

      der Stuhl → die Stühle

      bed → beds

    • ⸚ + -er:

      das Haus → die Häuser

      house → houses

    • ⸚ :

      der Ofen → die Öfen

      oven → ovens

• Plural Awareness: Recognize plurals when you encounter them

  Recognizing plurals while reading is also a great way to learn new ones! Check the noun for unexpected umlauts (ä, ö, or ü) or endings. If its form differs from the one you originally learned, it’s probably a plural.

In German, the form of the noun usually will not change to show its case. Instead, you will only see the definite article change form.

However, there is one tiny exception: If a plural noun does not end in -n, it acquires an -n in the dative case.

• Ich gebe den Männern die Zeitung.

  I give the newspaper to the men.

  → an indirect object

• Ich laufe zu den Bäumen hin.

  I walk towards the trees.

  → the object of a dative preposition

Let’s review what we’ve seen in this article:

• There are four common ways to make a noun plural: no change, add an ending, add an umlaut, or add an ending plus an umlaut.

• Learning plurals involves three strategies: knowing plural rules, some memorization, and plural awareness.

• Plural nouns in dative case add an additional -n or -en.

• Some nouns have no singular or no plural.

Are you ready to use what you’ve seen? Try these German plural noun activities. Or get studying using our list of German plural rules (including rare plural forms!).