"The horses eat."

Translation: De paarden eten.

[BelindaAnne]

It was "het paard", why not "het paarden"?

[-B-S-]

All Dutch plurals get the article "de", regardless of their gender.

[M_15ona]

What is the different between "het, de" ?!

[El2theK]

Have a read through this: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/3732938

[Rynoster_]

How does one differentiate between "eet, eten"???

[BelindaAnne]

'eet' is for singular an 'eten' for plurals.

[Onise_ok]

It says in TIPS that we have to shorten vowels (Schaap -> Schapen).
In this case, shouldn't het paard become de parden?

Or we have to have a single consonant after the long vowel to shorten it in plural?

[Susande]

In the tips it says:

"Always maintain vowel length. If a vowel sounds long, make sure it keeps sounding long (for instance, schaap becomes schapen). If a vowel sounds short, keep it short for instance, kat becomes katten)."

I think you're mixing up the above with a spelling rule. The pronounciation of the a/aa in schaap and schapen is the same. In both cases this is the long a. The short a is used in words like dat, vlag and Galatasaray.

The spelling rule is explained under "2. Open and closed syllables" here: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/3733043

[Onise_ok]

Yes, yes! My bad, makes sense now.

Thank you!

[SilasVogt]

En ik eet de paarden!