Plural form of nouns

The Grammar in Easy Afrikaans only provides general rules based on the Pareto principle. They are not complete and do not cover all exceptions. For that you need a grammar book:)

The general rule is : Start lesson

Most words are made plural in Afrikaans by adding an e.

So, boek 'book' becomes boeke 'books' or hond 'dog' becomes honde 'dogs'.

Of course, it isn't quite as simple as this as (and there are rules) a word like kop 'head' becomes koppe in the plural, but it is easier to listen and pay attention than try and remember that you double a consonant before a short vowel (or whatever).

Or by adding an s

Quite a few common nouns add an s in the plural instead of e. Many of these are loan words coming from English rather than dutch. Regardless you just have to learn when a word is made plural with e or s.

Afrikaans Plurals with sStart lesson

Here are a few examples of words made plural by adding an s.

	Singular	Plural
arm	arm	arms
bird	voël	voëls
brother	broer	broers
doctor	dokter	dokters
daughter	dogter	dogters
key	sleutel	sleutels
route	roete	roetes
sister	suster	susters
son	seun	seuns
televisions	televisie	televisies

Irregular Afrikaans Plurals

And some plurals are irregular. These exceptions (e.g. plurals which do not end in an e or s in the plural) just have to be learnt, or acquired through exposure to the language.

Learning Afrikaans vocabulary has some suggestions to help with vocabulary acquisition. One useful tip is to active learning. Think about what you are doing and don't just repeat words endlessly. Maybe look for patterns. For example a few of these plurals end with g in the singular.

This lesson has some of the more common irregular plurals.Start lesson

	Singular	Plural
eye	oog	oë
day	dag	dae
night	nag	nagte
flight	vlug	vlugte
woman	vrou	vrouens
child	kind	kinders