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Plurals ending

Diminutives

Compound nouns

Summarizing the diminutives
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By Bieneke Berendsen

If you only arrived on this page to look up a diminutive ending for a noun, have a look at the checklist and ignore the table below.

Now for the really, really serious students:

-je

Nouns ending in: Operation
basic form Simply add -je

-tje

Nouns ending in: Operation
vowel (a, e, i, o, u, y) or -w Single -a, -o, and -u are doubled to keep vowel long (see also rules for keeping vowels short/long).
Single e is a mute e and does not need to be doubled; you only add -tje.

Single i and y get an apostrophe to keep vowel long.

All others (vowel combinations, double ee): Simply add -tje.
long vowel + -r, -l, or -n Simply add -tje.
unstressed -er, -el, -en, or -or Simply add -tje.

-etje

Nouns ending in: Operation
short vowel + -r, -l, -n, -m or -ng Single -r, -l, -n, and -m are doubled to keep vowel short (see also rules for keeping vowels short/long)

-kje

Nouns ending in: Operation
unstressed -ing Replace -g by -k

-pje

Nouns ending in: Operation
Long vowel +m Simply add -pje.
unstressed -um or -em Simply add -pje.
-lm or -rm Simply add -pje.

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Last updated on April 09, 2008 ::