German Plurals — The Five Patterns and How Common Each Is

German plurals are usually taught as a list of five endings with no indication of which matters. This table is that list weighted by reality: every one of the 2,782 nouns in the A1–C2 vocabulary, classified by how it forms its plural.

Pattern	Nouns	Share	Examples
-en	1,147	41%	die Zeit → die Zeiten; die Frau → die Frauen; die Arbeit → die Arbeiten
-e	427	15%	der Tag → die Tage; der Abend → die Abende; der Freund → die Freunde
-n	400	14%	die Liebe → die Lieben; die Familie → die Familien; die Hilfe → die Hilfen
other	281	10%	das Haus → die Häuser; die Freundin → die Freundinnen; der Bus → die Busse
no change	266	10%	das Nein → die Nein; das Leben → die Leben; das Wasser → die Wasser
umlaut + -e	133	5%	die Nacht → die Nächte; die Stadt → die Städte; der Kopf → die Köpfe
-s	70	3%	das Baby → die Babys; das Auto → die Autos; der Kaffee → die Kaffees
umlaut + -er	23	1%	der Mann → die Männer; das Land → die Länder; das Wort → die Wörter
-er	21	1%	das Geld → die Gelder; das Kind → die Kinder; das Ei → die Eier
umlaut only	14	1%	der Vater → die Väter; die Mutter → die Mütter; der Bruder → die Brüder

What gender tells you

Feminine nouns take -(e)n in the overwhelming majority of cases, and never take -er. If you know it is die, the plural is close to predictable.
Masculine nouns mostly take -e, often with an umlaut (der Stuhl → die Stühle).
Neuter nouns take -e or -er; the -er plural is almost exclusively neuter and masculine.
Nouns ending in -er, -el, -en usually do not change at all (der Lehrer → die Lehrer) — you tell singular from plural by the article alone.
-s is the loanword plural: das Auto → die Autos, das Hotel → die Hotels. It is also what German reaches for with any new borrowing.

The dative plural -n

One rule that catches people out: every plural noun adds -n in the dative, unless the plural already ends in -n or -s.

die Kinder → mit den Kindern · die Freunde → mit den Freunden · die Autos → mit den Autos

Browse All 3,165 German nouns Each with its article, plural and genitive, ordered by frequency. Open the list

Common questions

How many plural forms does German have?

Five endings — no change, -e, -er, -(e)n and -s — each of which may also add an umlaut to the stem vowel. That gives about nine patterns in practice.

Can I predict a German plural?

Partly. Gender narrows it a lot: nearly all feminine nouns take -(e)n, and no feminine noun takes -er. Endings help too — nouns in -ung, -heit and -keit all take -en; nouns in -chen and -lein never change. The rest has to be learned with the word.

Why do some plurals add an umlaut?

It is a fossil of an old sound change: a following -i in Proto-Germanic pulled the stem vowel forward, and the -i then disappeared, leaving only the umlaut to mark the plural. Which is why it looks arbitrary now — the thing that caused it is gone.