Afrikaans has no grammatical gender and no case, so building a plural noun comes down to one decision: do you add -e or -s? Almost every regular plural in the language uses one of these two endings, and once you internalise the rough split between them you can pluralise the great majority of nouns correctly. This page covers the two endings and how to choose; irregular plurals and the spelling cases that need a circumflex or diaeresis have their own pages.
The two endings at a glance
English has one productive plural ending (-s, as in cats, books) plus a handful of leftovers (children, men, feet). Afrikaans has two productive endings, and neither one maps onto English -s directly. That mismatch is exactly where English speakers go wrong, so it is worth seeing the contrast clearly from the start.
| Singular | Plural | Ending | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| boek | boeke | -e | book / books |
| kat | katte | -e (doubled t) | cat / cats |
| hond | honde | -e | dog / dogs |
| tafel | tafels | -s | table / tables |
| motor | motors | -s | car / cars |
| boompie | boompies | -s | little tree / little trees |
Ek het twee boeke by die biblioteek geleen.
I borrowed two books from the library.
Ons het drie katte en een hond.
We have three cats and one dog.
When to use -e
The -e ending is the default for most short, native, everyday nouns — especially those of one syllable. If a noun feels like a basic Germanic word (a thing, an animal, a body part), reach for -e first.
| Singular | Plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hand | hande | hand / hands |
| boom | bome | tree / trees |
| perd | perde | horse / horses |
| vis | visse | fish / fishes |
| huis | huise | house / houses |
Die bome langs die pad is almal omgewaai.
The trees along the road all blew over.
Sy het koue hande gehad ná die wandeling.
Her hands were cold after the walk.
-e triggers spelling changes
Adding -e is not always a clean glue job. Two things can happen to the stem, and both are predictable enough to learn as habits rather than memorise word by word.
Consonant doubling. When a short noun ends in a single consonant after a single short vowel, that consonant doubles before -e. This keeps the vowel short in pronunciation — without doubling, the written vowel would be read as long.
| Singular | Plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| kat | katte | cat / cats |
| man | manne | man / men |
| bus | busse | bus / buses |
| pen | penne | pen / pens |
Vowel single-spelling. The mirror image happens with long vowels. A word like boom is written with a doubled vowel because the syllable is closed (it ends in a consonant). When -e opens the syllable, the long vowel is now shown with a single letter: boom → bome, been → bene (leg/legs), oog → oë (eye/eyes, with a diaeresis covered separately).
Hy het twee penne en 'n potlood in sy sak.
He has two pens and a pencil in his pocket.
Daar is baie busse wat na die stad ry.
There are many buses that go to the city.
When to use -s
The -s ending attaches mainly to longer words and to words that resist a clean -e. Three groups are reliable:
Polysyllabic words, especially those ending in an unstressed syllable like -el, -er, -en: tafel → tafels (table), kamer → kamers (room), appel → appels (apple), lepel → lepels (spoon).
Words ending in a vowel, where -e would be awkward: ma → ma's (mother), foto → foto's (photo), radio → radio's (radio). Note the apostrophe before -s after certain final vowels — it keeps the vowel readable.
Many loanwords, particularly recent ones from English: motor → motors (car), radio → radio's (radio), kantoor → kantore is the older settled type but newer imports such as rekenaar → rekenaars (computer) and app → apps lean -s. As a rough rule, the more a word feels imported and modern, the more likely it is -s — though plenty of long-naturalised borrowings (kanon → kanonne) have settled into -e, so let the "feel" of the word, not its distant origin, guide you.
| Singular | Plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| kamer | kamers | room / rooms |
| appel | appels | apple / apples |
| lepel | lepels | spoon / spoons |
| foto | foto's | photo / photos |
Daar is nog twee kamers oop in die gastehuis.
There are still two rooms free in the guesthouse.
Sy het al die foto's van die troue op haar foon.
She has all the photos from the wedding on her phone.
Diminutives are always -s
Here is the single most reliable anchor in the whole system: every diminutive takes -s, with no exceptions. Afrikaans loves diminutives (the -tjie, -jie, -pie, -kie, -ie endings), and they pluralise the same way every time — add -s, giving endings like -tjies and -pies.
| Singular (diminutive) | Plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| boompie | boompies | little tree / little trees |
| hondjie | hondjies | puppy / puppies |
| katjie | katjies | kitten / kittens |
| kindjie | kindjies | little child / little children |
Die katjies slaap almal in een mandjie.
The kittens are all sleeping in one basket.
A working rule of thumb
You will not always guess right — the -e/-s split has genuine grey areas, and some words even allow both. But this priority order gets you the right answer most of the time:
- Is it a diminutive? → -s (always).
- Does it end in a vowel? → -s (often with an apostrophe: foto's).
- Is it long / polysyllabic / a modern loanword? → lean -s.
- Otherwise (short, native, one syllable) → -e, applying consonant doubling or vowel single-spelling as needed.
Ons het nuwe tafels gekoop, maar die ou stoele gehou.
We bought new tables but kept the old chairs.
Common mistakes
❌ Ek het drie boeks gekoop.
Incorrect — boek is a short native noun and takes -e, not English -s.
✅ Ek het drie boeke gekoop.
I bought three books.
❌ Twee kate sit op die muur.
Incorrect — the final t must double before -e.
✅ Twee katte sit op die muur.
Two cats are sitting on the wall.
❌ Daar is vier tafele in die kamer.
Incorrect — tafel is polysyllabic and takes -s, not -e.
✅ Daar is vier tafels in die kamer.
There are four tables in the room.
❌ Sy het twee hondjie.
Incorrect — the diminutive plural needs -s; a bare diminutive cannot be plural.
✅ Sy het twee hondjies.
She has two puppies.
❌ Ek het baie fotos geneem.
Incorrect — a vowel-final stem takes an apostrophe before -s.
✅ Ek het baie foto's geneem.
I took many photos.
Key takeaways
- Afrikaans builds regular plurals with -e or -s; there is no single default to fall back on the way English has -s.
- -e suits short, native, one-syllable nouns and triggers consonant doubling (kat → katte) or vowel single-spelling (boom → bome).
- -s suits polysyllabic words, vowel-final stems (often with an apostrophe), and many loanwords.
- Diminutives are always -s — your most dependable anchor.
- Irregular plurals (kind → kinders, stad → stede) and the diaeresis cases (brug → brûe) are handled on the irregular plurals and diaeresis plurals pages.
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Start learning Afrikaans→Related Topics
- Irregular and Mutated PluralsA2 — Afrikaans plurals that the -e/-s rule cannot predict: the -ers and -ere relics of old Dutch neuter nouns, stem-vowel changes like stad/stede, and the f-to-w and d-voicing alternations that surface under inflection.
- Plurals with the DiaeresisA2 — Why some Afrikaans plurals carry a diaeresis (oog→oë, knie→knieë, see→seë): the -e ending brings two vowels together, and the dots simply mark the syllable break.
- Vowel Doubling and Syllable StructureA1 — Why a long vowel is written double in a closed syllable but single in an open one, and how it mirrors consonant doubling.