The formula for the plural form:
noun + s
Examples of plural nouns that end in -s:
| de tafel
| de tafels
| the table(s)
|
| de computer
| de computers
| the computer(s)
|
| de tovenaar
| de tovenaars
| the wizard(s)
|
Apostrophe
When a singular noun ends in a single vowel, you cannot simply add -s to it. After all, a single open vowel is a long vowel. If we add -s to it, it will turn into a (closed) short vowel. In order to keep the vowel long, we add an apostrophe?:
| de auto
| de auto's
| the car(s)
|
| het menu
| de menu's
| the menu(s)
|
| het programma
| de programma's
| the program(s)
|
The single e at the end of a word is an exception as it is amute e, not a long vowel. Adding s will not change the mute e.
| het gebergte
| de gebergtes
| the mountain range(s)
|
| de gewoonte
| de gewoontes
| the habit(s), custom(s)
|
| de boete
| de boetes
| the fine(s)
|
N.B. Correcting for hard and soft consonants is not necessary. An f stays an f and an s stays an s.
Now you probably wonder why we need two different endings for the plural form. We already had -en, which does its job perfectly well. As with many other linguistic phenomena, there is no rationale behind it. It would have been a lot easier if we would just stick to only one ending. But since we have to deal with two, we might as well have a look at the '-s nouns' and the '-en nouns'.
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