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- Topic: German >
- "Die Pferde"
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There are different ways to get the plural of a noun. If you have words already ending in "-e" the plural will most definitely just get an "-n". Like "der Name" gets "die Namen" in plural. Some words even get "-en" to achieve the plural like "die Frau"/"die Frauen" or "der Herr"/"die Herren". Others ending in "-l" just get an "-n" like "die Fackel"/"die Fackeln". So the most plural words would end in "-n" I would say. But many also get just an "-e". Like "das Pferd"/"die Pferde". In some cases there is the ending "-er" added: "das Kind"/"die Kinder" or an additional vowel change to an umlaut "das Horn"/"die Hörner". Some don't change at all "der Eimer"/"die Eimer". That does not accure with feminine nouns though because you could not differentiate them from the singular form then. And quite a few words get the ending "-s" like in English. For example: "das Auto"/"die Autos", "das Handy"/"die Handys", "der Akku"/"die Akkus". They would mostly end in other vowels beside "-e" then. Some words with foreign heritage have irregular plurals like: "der Kaktus"/"die Kakteen", "der Globus"/"die Globen", "das Opus"/"die Opera". You will get to know these one by one and eventually it will come naturally to you.
I hope I could be of help.
Unfortunately it is not that simple. German has quite a few different patterns of forming plurals, and I'm afraid you will have to learn them. This is a good overview over plural formation:
http://www.nthuleen.com/teach/grammar/pluralexpl.html
Careful: All examples given show only the nominative case! Particularly masculine nouns may also have in plural changes in cases!