Dutch plurals: boom, bomen and paprika's

Eén boek, twee boeken. Eén tafel, twee tafels. Eén paprika, zeshonderd paprika's. Why does one word get -en, the next -s, and a third an apostrophe? A handful of rules gets you a very long way.

Short answer: most words get -en (boeken). Words ending in an unstressed -el, -em, -en, -er and all diminutives get -s (tafels, broodjes). A word ending in a, i, o, u or y gets 's (paprika's). With -en, watch the spelling: boom, bomen; bus, bussen; brief, brieven. A plural is always a de-word.

1 -en: the usual way

Most Dutch words get -en, above all words of one syllable and words with the stress at the end:

Tip: a plural is always a de-word. Het boek, but de boeken; het kind, but de kinderen. So the plural never tells you whether a word is de or het, but it is also one place where you cannot get it wrong.

2 -s and -'s

-s goes on words ending in an unstressed -el, -em, -en, -er or -aar, and on every diminutive:

's is what you write after an a, i, o, u or y at the end. Without the apostrophe a Dutch reader would make the sound short: autos reads as au-tos with a short o. The apostrophe keeps it long:

An e at the end just gets -s, no apostrophe: de tante, de tantes. And the apostrophe really belongs only after those vowels. You will see tomaat's or lepel's on signs at every Dutch market, and the Dutch make fun of it themselves: it is tomaten and lepels.

3 The spelling with -en

With -en the word gets an extra syllable, and that can change the spelling. You still say the word the same way, you only write it differently. Three rules do it.

A long sound: one letter is enough. A long aa, ee, oo, uu at the end of a syllable is written with one letter. Say it in pieces: bo-men, the o is at the end of bo.

A short sound: double the consonant. After a short a, e, i, o, u the consonant is doubled, or the sound would be read long: busen would read as bu-sen, with a long u.

f becomes v, s becomes z. After a long sound the f and the s are said softer in the plural, and written that way too:

Watch out: not every word does this. De fiets, de fietsen and de kous, de kousen (sock) keep their s, and so do borrowed words: de chef, de chefs. When in doubt, look it up.

4 Words that do it differently

A few words, often very common ones, follow no rule. These you learn by heart:

Some words take both: appels and appelen, groentes and groenten. In everyday talk you mostly hear the one with -s. And kinders is something you may hear in a dialect, but never write.

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