Danish:Plurality

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dansk Danish
Family	Sub-family	Language of	Script
Germanic	North Germanic	Denmark, Faroe Island, Greenland, Iceland, [Northern] Germany	Extended Latin

Danish marks nouns only for the plural, and it's really rather simple and regular. There are three possible plural endings, and then a handful (alright, a rather large handful) of nouns have a stem change into the plural.

The -er plural

The first, and most common, plural is the -er plural. This plural simply adds -er to the singular of the noun. If you don't know the correct plural of the noun and you need to guess, choose this one! In many cases, the plural will include a doubling of the last consonant, if the word ends in a consonant.

Danish	English
bil	car
biler	cars
hotel	hotel
hoteller	hotels

The definite

The definite of all the plurals is very simple, just add -ne to then end of the plural, no matter the gender.

Danish	English
bilen	the car
bilerne	the cars
hotelet	the hotel
hotellerne	the hotels

The -e plural

This is the next most common plural. It typically effects single syllable common nouns.

Danish	English
sang	song
sange	songs
stol	chair
stole	chairs

As with the -er plural, the definite is created by simply adding -ne to the plural.

The no change plural

This is the simplest, but least common plural. It is, quite simply, just no change whatsoever. These nouns are, almost without exception, one syllable neuter nouns.

Danish	English
år	year
år	years
lam	lamb
lam	lambs

Definite

Now, it's important to remember that the definite of these nouns is different from the singular.

Danish	English
året	the year
årene	the years
lammet	the lamb
lammene	the lambs

Danish pages
Introduction · Pronouns · Gender · Plurality · Verbs

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