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- Topic: German >
- "Er hat Teller."
13 Comments
Because there's no article. if it wasnt plural then there should be an article either definite of indefinite.
This is only that tricky for male nouns with the same ending in plural
der Teller male(sin) die Teller male(pl)
der Roller male(sin) die Roller male(pl)
der Koffer male(sin) die Koffer male(pl)
that doens't apply to these nouns, they have a different plural form/ending, so its easy to determine.
der Bus male(sin) die Busse male(pl)
der Tisch male(sin) die Tische male(pl)
der Ball male(sin) die Baelle male(pl)
Thank you! That makes sense. Like in English, you wouldn't say "He has plate". You'd say "He has A plate". Got it. :)
in lots of examples here, the singular forms are without the articles. so this IS unclear.
You should know from the context. And also a good point by the previous user, is that it has no article. It hardly means, ''he has plate.'' that would sound broken, so it must mean ''He has plates'', which is similar in English. Remember that very often the structure of German is very similar to English. They, along with dutch, are in the same family of languages. Also, 'Teller' is one of those nouns whose plural form is almost indistinguishable from its singular form. For these nouns you'll have to be able to tell from the article, ( or lack of..) or if that doesn't work, simply from the context.
Because if a noun ends with -er or -el and is not feminine, then it usually doesn't change the ending (e.g. der Teller, die Teller). Plus it doesn't have any articles.
808
I checked the dictionary, the plural form of Teller should be Tellern. Could someone explain this?
I believe it depends on the german case (nominative, accusative, genitive etc). I can't explain that to you because I haven't learned all the german cases
The plural is Teller. (leo.org) The German case here is accusative and it does not change the ending of the word. This exercise should accept a translation such as "He has some/several plates"...
