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Better German Podcast with Susi

Susanne Schilk-Blümel
Since 09/2023 56 episodes

22 How Can We Speak of More Than One Thing in German?

The German Plural

2024-02-01 20 min

Description & Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 22 of the Better German Podcast! In this episode, I am going to give you an introduction to the German plural. The episode focuses on explaining the concept of noun plurals in German and mentions different ways of forming plurals, such as adding letters or changing vowels. The script also highlights the importance of learning articles and provides examples of plural forms for various words.

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Summary:
In this episode of the Better German Podcast, Susi Blumel introduces you to the concept of German plural nouns. She explains that in German, the formation of plurals is more varied than in English, with no single rule to follow. Susi demonstrates some of the different ways plurals are formed and provides examples using words from previous episodes. She reassures listeners that while learning plural forms may seem daunting, there are only a few common ways to form them. Coming up in the next episode, Suse will provide practice in forming plural nouns. Finally, she teases an upcoming episode on how to learn nouns.

Key Topics Explored 🔎
Primary Topic: Introduction to German Plural
Definition of Noun
Explaining what a noun is
Describing different kinds of nouns

Singular and Plural
Differentiating between singular (singular) and plural (plural) forms in German
Explanation of how nouns change when referring to more than one object

Plural Formation
Emphasizing the lack of a single rule for forming plurals in German
Individual learning of plural forms for each noun
Importance of consulting dictionaries for plural forms
Examples of Plural Formation
Adding "e" to the end of a word to form plural
Adding "n" to the end of a word to form plural
No change in the word for plural in some cases
Changing the vowel and adding an extra letter to form plural

Plural of Articles
Providing insight into the simplicity of forming plural articles in German
Future Episodes
Announcement of an upcoming episode for practicing plurals of learned words
Teaser for an episode on the learning of German nouns and tips for practice
Importance of Noun Learning
Highlighting the vital role of nouns in language learning
Comparing the process of noun learning to a child's language acquisition

Related Episodes
Episode 5: Introduction to Articles 
Episode 6: Wordlist Body Parts
Episode 11: Wordlist Office/Classroom
Episode 21: Introduction to the Differences of Austrian and German German
Episode 23: Practice German Plural with Learned Words

Other Resources
  • Make use of this Interactive German Movie Guide. Watching German movies and TV shows is great to help you learn German. In this guide, you will find suitable TV shows and movies with subtitles in your language, so you can start using movies to learn right away! 
  • Get up to speed with All The Episodes Published So Far!

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Transcript

Welcome to the Better German podcast. My name is Susi Blümel, and I will teach you German and everything around the language , the countries and the culture. Welcome to the better German Popcast. In this episode. We're going to talk about Plurals of Nouns in German. So I'm going to give you an introduction of the plural of nouns in German. So, a noun of course is a part of speech. A kind of word that is about things that we can touch. Like a table, or sometimes also things that we can't touch, like, help. So, this is what we're talking about and there are different forms usually used for when we talk about more than one of them. For example tables, two tables. In English this is quite easy. In German, unfortunately, it's not quite that easy, so that's the first introduction to it. So let's get the words straight. So we're talking about the plurals of nouns, and in German this would be "Mehrzahl." "Mehrzahl" means "plural." Singular, that is, "einzahl" So singular is, we talk about one object. Let's take a table, "ein Tisch" that's singular, and when we talk about several of them, we have a different form usually, and it's "die Tische" —"the tables." That's plural. And in German, singular would be "Einzahl" plural would be "Mehrzahl." We do use also to term singular plurals or whatever works better for you, you can use. I'm just telling you the German word as well, because first of all, I mean, If you want to learn German, it's a good idea it's a German word. And also, you might find this in dictionaries. In case you wonder, I've kind of, if you had followed my podcast, sometimes said that I'm trying to teach you German without grammar. So, of course, grammar are the rules how you make words into sentences. So when I say I'm teaching you German without grammar, it's probably not a 100% accurate statement. I'm not teaching you German without grammar because you do learn how to put words correctly together also with me. But what I'm doing is I'm trying to give you as little as possible complicated terms or rules in the way that they are often given in a grammar book. I'm more, I usually have more an approach of how you would explain it very simply without going into big rules. However, there are a few terms like this one, singular—plural, where it's kind of like more complicated to not use the term. So that's why I'm entering it, but whenever I do something like that, I will always explain it. And by the way, there's also an episode coming up about the different parts of speech. Like, what are the different, functions that words can have in a sentence, and where I'm going to give them, because if you haven't really tried to learn German or pretty much any language or even just learn English, you probably came across them and I want to give you, I want to help you in clearing them up, if you have any confusions with them. Okay, good. So we're going to talk about the plurals of nouns, the  "Mehrzahl von Nomen." "Noun" in German is a "Nomen." And I'm also going to give you a little bit of information about the plural of articles because that's super simple in this case. Okay. So, what can I tell you about the plural of nouns in German? In English, it's very, very regular, and most of the cases there have a few ones there that are funky, but mostly everything is with S. In German, there is no real rule that I can give to you that will make it super easy. And in actual fact for every word, you have to learn the plural with it. So when you learn a new word like "der Tisch" —"the table," you also take a look at what is the plural and it will be in the dictionary. Every dictionary will give you the plural form for every noun because there is no real rules. So "der Tisch" —one, is one table, the table, und (and) die Tische," in this case is plural. So in this particular example of table, we add an "e." The good news, however, it's we don't have an infinite number of ways how we make the plural. So, it is less complicated and less difficult than you think, because once you have learned some nouns, some verbs and you will see the plural forms, you will see there is only like six or seven ways how we make it, that our usual and the most frequent ones are maybe just three or four. So, let me give you a few examples and I'm going to use words that we have already learned. We're going to use words from the episodes, uh we had like two past episodes. I've made two past episodes with basically just words. One was words about the body, body parts, and one was words about the classroom. So we're going to use words of those two episodes or I'm going to use, words of those two episodes to give you examples on, the plural thing. Okay. So by the way, the episode with the words about the body part is the Episode 6, and the episode with words about the classroom, or office or a desk, that's the Episode 11. So I'm just going to use words from those two episodes right now. Okay so let me give you a few examples. So one of the most common ways how we make a plural is by simply adding the letter "e" to the end of the word. Like "der Tisch," that's the table. Und (and) "die Tische." So we just add an "e." And that is by the way, what we can say relatively safely in many, many cases, we just add one or two letters to the end. In some cases, however, we change one vowel. So we will make an Umlaut, we will use some of the extra letters that we have in German. Okay, good. So this was one example. Then we have another way. Another very often used ways to add an "en" "die Lampe", "die Lampen" That's "the lamp", "the lamps." And then another way we, another example for this thing is "die Pflanze." That's "the plant", "the plants." Another thing that we very often have and that's kind of easy. Good news, some things are really easy. We don't change anything. We say "das Fenster" "The window." und (and) "die Fenster"— "the windows." So maybe you have noticed I've changed the article. If you're from not familiar with articles at all, then I suggest you very much to go and listen to the episode that I've made about this. Which is the Introduction to Articles. That's the episode 5. So if you're not familiar with articles, I highly suggest to you to listen to Episode 5, Introduction to Articles, first. And then maybe add Episode 6, which is the Word List about Body Parts, because that will give you more of an idea what I'm talking about. But just so you know, the article is in English, always "the" and in German we have three versions of it, considered to be, of course the male, the female, or the neutral, form of the article. And we just learned them with the words. If you don't speak a language that uses articles and, this idea of a female, a male or a neutral word, and this may seem odd to you, I understand, but as I said, in that case, I really suggest you to listen to that episode first. However, maybe you have, you come from a different language and this is not so unusual for you. It is, It is much, much easier not to go crazy about them. You don't have to go crazy about them, but if you learn words in the beginning, to learn these articles, the correct forms with them. And, by the way, I will have an extra episode coming up on how to learn nouns. That's going to come soon, and there we'll go into that even more. So let's go back to our example, and I was telling you the plural of "das Fenster." "das Fenster" is "the window." And the plural of "das Fenster" is "die Fenster," —"the windows." and what I want to point out in this example is the word itself doesn't change in this particular case, and that happens quite a lot. For example, also "der Computer," "die Computer," There is no change in the word. How you see the word is used in plural, however, is on the article. So the article changes and the article, and that's good news, for every plural word is die. This could change depending on the usage in the sentence, but the basic form of articles in plural is always die. So when you say something like, "das Fenster ist schön," That is the window is nice —is beautiful." And you want to say the same thing about two windows, because you have two windows in your room, then you say "die Fenster sind schön." So, that's the thing, the articles are always "die." So I'm going to give you one more example. I'm not going to give you all the details of all different forms of plural. There's, I'm having a separate episode which is the next episode, where we really just practice all the plural forms of all the words that you have learned if you have listened to the podcast so far. So I'm going to give you all the plural forms and have you repeat them for Episode 11, that's the Word List —Office. And Episode 6, which is the Word List —Body Parts. So that's the next episode coming up. And I, of course, as always highly suggest you to listen to them. In this episode, I'm just going to give you some basic explanations and some ideas of the different forms, so you are not totally puzzled when I first do that. So, okay, so we've had the versions where we add an "e," we have had the versions where we add an "n" and we've had a version where we don't change anything. Now we have another one, another thing that we do a lot. So, for example, let's take the word "das Buch," —"the book." And the plural for das Buch, is "die Bücher" So what we do. This Oo (U), the letter in English, "U" in here, in German, "Oo" becomes, changed to the German, " ü" So "ü" is a letter that looks like English, "u" and has two dots on it. So we call it "ü" or "Umlaut" and we have those a lot, by the way. And just in case, you were wondering about them, these are separate letters. So these are really separate letters. So we have additional letters in German, this is for "A" German, "Ah," for "O" in German, "Oh," and "U" in German, " Oo" All of these have version a different version or, a different letter that looks the same, but it has two dots, and these are really different letters. This is maybe something that is important to know, because it's not just a symbol that we make, put there somewhere. It has a different pronunciation, that you may have to get used to it, and it's a different letter actually. So, "das Buch" becomes "die Bücher," in plural. "The books", "die Bücher" So we changed the Oo (u), the letter U to the Umlaut. So we basically put two dots on the "u" and we add an "er" at the end. And that's a quite frequent way of making a plural in German. We will have that in many occasions. And another similar way, it doesn't have to be two letters, it could just be one, would be, for example, the word "Rucksack." That is a word that is sometimes also used in English and it's a German word, it means "backpack." And the plural for "Rucksack," is "Rucksäcke." So "Säcke," is again, a sack by the way, is a, "a bag" basically. And we just put the plural on the second part of the word. So "Rucksack," and "Rucksäcke" so that, "Ah," becomes an "Umlaut Ah." So we put two dots again on it and it's pronounced ""eh" instead of "ah," and then we add an "e" to the end, and in German "Eh." So "der Rucksack," "one backpack," the backpack. "die Rucksäcke." "The backpacks." And another example that is very similar with a different letter is "der Blumentopf" The uh, "the flower pot." "Der Blumentopf." And the plural is "die Blumentöpfe." "Töpfe" So, again, we put two dots on the "O" and that becomes "Ooh," and we add an "e" at the end. "die Blumentöpfe." So, these are just a few of the forms. They're not so many more that are used a lot. I just wanted to give you a little bit of an intro on the plural, and the summaries. In German, we have not a set rule on how to build the plural for nouns. So you have to learn to plural with each noun. And, but it's not so hard as it may sound, because we just have a few different forms that we're using a lot, and the other good news is every dictionary will tell you how to do this, or what the plural form is. And, the plural form for the articles is always "die." So the next episode that is coming up, we're going to practice or I'm going to give you the plural forms of all the words that you've learned, if you have followed the podcast so far. And these are words that you will find around you or on you because these are body parts and these awards about an office and we're going to practice. I'm going to give to you the plural for every one of them, and we're going to practice it. I'm going to give you some clues on how you can practice them further. Another episode coming up soon, is an episode on How to Learn Nouns, because the first thing if you want to learn German or any language by the way is to learn nouns, and to learn the words for the things that you will see around you. That's also the first thing a child learns when he or she learns their language. They learn nouns, and, so I'm going to have give you a few tips on how to learn German nouns. I'm going to give you the tips on how to practice them, and how this can be fun, and also about the different points to look at when you're learning a new noun. Okay, good. So this is coming up soon. As soon as the episode is out, I'm going to link it also in the show notes of this one. I can tell you when it's coming So this is coming in the beginning of February. So in the beginning of February, there is going to be an episode on how to learn nouns. Okay. Good. So let me know what I can do for you. Thank you very much for listening. My name is Susie. I'm teaching you German. I'm telling you also about the culture of the German-speaking countries. I appreciate that you're listening to me. You can find all the information about what I do and what I offer on my homepage, bettergerman.info. You can find the show notes for this episode on bettergerman.info/22 because this is the episode 22. So you will find the show notes for this episode on bettergerman.info/22 and I hope to see you or hear you again next week. Bye-bye.

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