Lesson 5 - Nouns As Plural (navneord i flertal)
Plural Indefinite
When talking about unspecific nouns in plural (e.g. cars) you add an ending to the noun in Danish. This ending can either be -er, -r, -e or none. Below are some examples of when to use each ending.
Plural indefinite nouns ending with -er:
If the noun ends on a consonant (or a vowel that is not ‘e’) you add -er to the end of the noun to make it plural indefinite. Example:
En bil (a car) becomes biler
En blyant (a pencil) becomes blyanter
Træ becomes træer
Plural indefinite nouns ending with -r:
If the noun ends on the vowel ‘e’ you add -r to the end of the noun to make it plural indefinite. Example:
En abe (a monkey) becomes aber
En time (an hour) becomes timer
Plural indefinite nouns ending with -e:
Some nouns that ends on a consonant will have the -e ending instead of the -er ending when plural indefinite. There are about 20% of such nouns. Examples:
En dreng (a boy) becomes drenge
Et skab (a closet) becomes skabe
Plural indefinite nouns with no endings:
Some nouns has no endings when indefinite plural and are exactly the same as the singular indefinite. Examples:
Et år (a year) becomes år
En mus (a mouse) becomes mus
Plural indefinite nouns that changes vowel:
Some nouns changes their vowel when plural indefinite. Examples:
En ko (a cow) becomes køer
En bog (a book) becomes bøger
En mand (a man) becomes mænd
Plural indefinite foreign words:
Some nouns are borrowed from foreign languages. Some of these nouns are conjugated a little differently. Examples:
En mail (a mail) becomes mails
En konto (an account) becomes konti
Plural Definite
When talking about nouns in specifics and in plural (e.g. the cars) you add an additional ending to the noun (in its plural form). Such endings are either -ne or -ene. Below are some examples of when to use which ending.
Plural definite nouns ending with -ne:
This ending makes up for majority of the nouns in plural definite form.
Biler becomes bilerne
Timer becomes timerne
Skabe becomes skabene
Køer becomes køerne
Plural definite nouns ending with -ene:
År becomes årene
Mus becomes musene
Mænd becomes mændene
Lesson endnote:
As you can tell there are many different endings and rules to apply to nouns. Try and memorize what you can, but don’t sweat it. How to conjugate the nouns will come naturally as you learn Danish and gets exposed to- and immersed in the language, but knowing these rules will get you far!
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