German has seven ways to form the plural. You have to learn it with the noun, but gender and ending give good clues. Good news: in the plural the article is always die, whatever the gender.
| Ending | Examples | Mostly for |
|---|---|---|
| -e | der Tag → die Tage, der Hund → die Hunde | many short masculines |
| ¨-e | der Stuhl → die Stühle, die Hand → die Hände | short masculines and a few feminines |
| -er / ¨-er | das Kind → die Kinder, das Buch → die Bücher, der Mann → die Männer | short neuters; always with umlaut if possible |
| -(e)n | die Frau → die Frauen, die Lampe → die Lampen, der Junge → die Jungen | almost all feminines; n-Deklination masculines |
| -nen | die Lehrerin → die Lehrerinnen | feminines in -in |
| – / ¨ | der Lehrer → die Lehrer, das Mädchen → die Mädchen, der Vater → die Väter | masculines and neuters in -er, -el, -en, -chen, -lein |
| -s | das Auto → die Autos, das Hotel → die Hotels, die Oma → die Omas | foreign words, words ending in a vowel, abbreviations |
Die Kinder spielen im Garten.
The children are playing in the garden.
Ich habe zwei Brüder und drei Schwestern.
I have two brothers and three sisters.
Translate the words from your reading, review them as flashcards and practise with gap-fill sentences.
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