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A2 · Nouns and articles

Irregular plurals: kinderen, steden, schepen

special plural forms

Topic 34 of 90 · about 9 minutes

Your goal

You can use the irregular plurals of common words such as kinderen, steden and eieren.

De eieren zijn op.The eggs are all gone.

Ik zet de glazen op tafel.I put the glasses on the table.

In de haven liggen grote schepen.Big ships are lying in the harbour.

Done at 8 of 10 · about 4 min

Explainer video

Watch first – then practise

The essentials

Rememberkind, ei and lied take -eren; stad, schip, dag and glas lengthen the vowel.

A few common words take -eren or lengthen their vowel — you learn them one by one.

Signal words: -eren
kinderen
steden
schepen
dagen
-heden

The form

The forms side by side

All the forms in one overview: first what each one stands for, then the form in Dutch, so you can compare them directly.

child – children	het kind → de kinderen
egg – eggs	het ei → de eieren
city – cities	de stad → de steden
ship – ships	het schip → de schepen
day – days	de dag → de dagen
glass – glasses	het glas → de glazen
cow – cows	de koe → de koeien
possibility – possibilities	de mogelijkheid → de mogelijkheden
museum – museums	het museum → de musea, de museums

The rules one by one

The form this topic is about

Some words take -eren.
Hoeveel kinderen heb je?How many children do you have?
Some words lengthen their vowel in the plural.
In de zomer zijn de dagen lang.In summer the days are long.
With stad, schip and lid the vowel changes.
Utrecht en Gent zijn mooie steden.Utrecht and Ghent are beautiful cities.

More rules (2)

-heid becomes -heden.
Er zijn twee mogelijkheden.There are two possibilities.
-man often becomes -lieden or -lui.
De zakenlieden eten in het hotel.The businessmen are eating in the hotel.

Example sentences

6 more example sentences

De wegen zijn vandaag glad.The roads are slippery today.

De koeien staan in de wei.The cows are standing in the meadow.

Antwerpen heeft veel musea.Antwerp has many museums.

Hij zingt oude liederen.He sings old songs.

De daken zijn wit van de sneeuw.The roofs are white with snow.

De paden in het park zijn nat.The paths in the park are wet.

The trap English speakers fall into

Watch out

If you know the rule of bal → ballen, you apply it to stad and write stadden. It looks tidy and is wrong: stad is one of the words that change the vowel in the plural. No English pattern predicts steden; these words are learnt one by one.

Wrong:Gent en Utrecht zijn mooie stadden.

Right:Gent en Utrecht zijn mooie steden.

Lesson

The full explanation

Read it all · about 1 min

Only a few nouns step out of line in the plural, but they are among the most common. The first group takes -eren, like the “-ren” of English “children”: kind → kinderen, ei → eieren, lied → liederen, blad → bladeren.

The second group has a short vowel in the singular but a long one in the plural. By the rule you would expect dak → dakken, like bal → ballen; in fact it is daken, with a long a. So are dag → dagen, weg → wegen, glas → glazen, pad → paden, spel → spelen. In some the vowel also changes: stad → steden, schip → schepen, lid → leden.

Then there are individual cases: koe → koeien, words in -heid with -heden (mogelijkheid → mogelijkheden), compounds with -man that take -lieden or -lui (zakenman → zakenlieden), and Latin words with two forms: museum → musea or museums.

A closer look

Why stad becomes steden

In the Middle Ages vowels in open syllables — syllables that end in a vowel — were pronounced long. In the plural ste-den the vowel stands at the end of the syllable and became long; in the singular stad it stayed short. Most words later levelled out the difference; a few common ones kept it. English has a similar relic in “leaf – leaves” and “house – houses”, where the last consonant changes its sound in the plural.

Exceptions and special cases1

Exception
When a word has two plurals with two meanings
then you have to know both: blad → bladeren (leaves on a tree), but blad → bladen (magazines, trays).
In de herfst vallen de bladeren.In autumn the leaves fall.
Why? The old form stayed with the original meaning, and the new meaning got the more regular form.

Worth knowing2

Worth knowing
kinderen and kinders
In conversation, especially in Flanders, you also hear kinders. In writing it is only kinderen, and that is what you say in any conversation that is not completely relaxed.
Onze kinderen gaan naar dezelfde school.Our children go to the same school.
Worth knowing
Words only in the plural
As in English (“clothes”, “costs”) there are words that occur almost only in the plural: de kosten(the costs)de kleren(the clothes) They take de and a plural verb.
De kosten zijn hoog.The costs are high.

The verbs on this page, in every form: hebben · liggen · zetten · wegen