Most Danish nouns form their plural with -er, -e, or nothing at all, and those patterns are predictable enough to guess. This page is about the ones you cannot guess: nouns that change their stem vowel (umlaut plurals), nouns whose plural looks exactly like the singular (zero-plurals), and loanwords that drag a foreign ending in with them. There is no rule that generates these — they are a closed list you simply have to learn. The good news is that the list is short and the highest-frequency members are everyday words you will meet immediately.
Umlaut plurals — the stem vowel changes
A handful of old Germanic nouns mark the plural not (only) with an ending but by changing the vowel inside the word. This is the same historical process that gives English foot → feet and man → men. In Danish the vowel typically fronts: a → æ, o → ø, å → æ.
| Singular | Plural | Meaning | Vowel change |
|---|---|---|---|
| en bog | bøger | book(s) | o → ø |
| en mand | mænd | man / men | a → æ |
| et barn | børn | child / children | a → ø |
| en hånd | hænder | hand(s) | å → æ |
| en gås | gæs | goose / geese | å → æ |
| en and | ænder | duck(s) | a → æ |
| en ko | køer | cow(s) | o → ø |
| en tand | tænder | tooth / teeth | a → æ |
| en fod | fødder | foot / feet | o → ø |
| en nat | nætter | night(s) | a → æ |
| en bonde | bønder | farmer / peasant(s) | o → ø |
Jeg har lige købt tre nye bøger til ferien.
I just bought three new books for the holiday.
Der stod to mænd og ventede uden for døren.
Two men were standing waiting outside the door.
Vi har tre børn — to drenge og en pige.
We have three children — two boys and a girl.
For an English speaker the comforting news is that several of these line up with English umlaut plurals you already know: mand → mænd mirrors man → men, fod → fødder mirrors foot → feet, gås → gæs mirrors goose → geese, tand → tænder mirrors tooth → teeth. The same Germanic sound change ran through both languages, so the patterns rhyme.
Watch the definite forms too, because the vowel change carries through: mænd → mændene (the men), børn → børnene (the children), bøger → bøgerne (the books), tænder → tænderne (the teeth). The stem vowel stays changed; you just add the definite plural ending on top.
Børnene er allerede gået i seng.
The children have already gone to bed.
Hun børstede tænderne og gik i bad.
She brushed her teeth and took a shower.
Zero-plurals — singular and plural look identical
Some nouns add no ending at all in the plural. The word is identical in both numbers, and only the surrounding words — numerals, articles, verb agreement — tell you which you mean. These are mostly neuter (et-words) nouns and old units of measure.
| Singular | Plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| et år | år | year(s) |
| en ting | ting | thing(s) |
| en sko | sko | shoe(s) |
| en mus | mus | mouse / mice |
| en lus | lus | louse / lice |
| et får | får | sheep (sg./pl.) |
| en øre | øre | øre (the coin — 1/100 krone) |
Jeg har boet i Danmark i ti år.
I've lived in Denmark for ten years.
Der er to ting, jeg gerne vil sige.
There are two things I'd like to say.
Mine nye sko trykker lidt.
My new shoes pinch a bit.
Note the trap with øre: as the unit of money it is a zero-plural (halvtreds øre = fifty øre), but the homonym et øre meaning "ear" pluralises to ører, and the body-part øre meaning "ear" of corn behaves differently again. Context disambiguates; when in doubt, the money sense never adds an ending. The definite plurals still take the regular ending: årene (the years), tingene (the things), skoene (the shoes).
De sidste par år har været hårde.
The last couple of years have been hard.
Loanwords that keep a foreign ending
Words borrowed from Latin and other languages sometimes import their original plural. These are stylistically marked: the foreign plural is (formal / academic), while many of them also have a Danicised everyday alternative.
| Singular | Foreign plural | Danicised plural | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| et faktum | fakta | — | fact(s) |
| en konto | konti (formal) | kontoer (informal) | account(s) |
| et museum | museer | — | museum(s) |
| et tema | temaer | — | theme(s) |
| et centrum | centre / centrummer | — | centre(s) |
Det er der faktisk ingen fakta, der understøtter.
There are actually no facts that support that.
Vi besøgte to museer på én dag.
We visited two museums in one day.
Note that fakta is now so entrenched that many Danes treat it as a singular collective ("a body of facts") and even build a new plural on it in casual speech — a sign that the Latin pattern is being absorbed. For konto, the everyday choice is kontoer; konti survives mainly in banking and accounting registers.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg har læst mange barner i år.
Incorrect — 'barn' has the umlaut plural 'børn', never *barner.
✅ Jeg har læst mange bøger for børnene i år.
I've read many books to the children this year.
❌ Der var mange manden til mødet.
Incorrect — the plural of 'mand' is 'mænd', not *mander or *manden (the latter is the definite singular).
✅ Der var mange mænd til mødet.
There were many men at the meeting.
❌ Vi blev her i tre årer.
Incorrect — 'år' is a zero-plural; the plural is identical to the singular.
✅ Vi blev her i tre år.
We stayed here for three years.
❌ Hun købte to par skoer i går.
Incorrect — 'sko' is a zero-plural; no -er ending in the indefinite plural.
✅ Hun købte to par sko i går.
She bought two pairs of shoes yesterday.
Key Takeaways
- Umlaut plurals change the stem vowel (bog → bøger, mand → mænd, barn → børn); the change carries into the definite form too (børnene).
- Several umlaut plurals mirror English (man/men, foot/feet, goose/geese, tooth/teeth) — use that to your advantage.
- Zero-plurals (år, ting, sko, mus, lus) are spelled identically in singular and plural; only context disambiguates.
- Loanwords may keep a foreign plural (faktum → fakta, konto → konti), but the Danicised form is usually preferred in everyday register.
- There is no rule to derive these — they are a closed memorised list, and barn and mand are the two you need first.
Now practice Danish
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Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Forming PluralsA1 — The three Danish plural classes (-er, -e, and zero), consonant doubling, and the small group of vowel-changing plurals.
- The Definite PluralA2 — How to say 'the cars', 'the houses', 'the children' — the definite plural suffix -ne / -ene added to the indefinite plural.
- Plural-only and Singular-only NounsB2 — Danish nouns that exist in only one number — pluralia tantum like penge and forældre that always take plural agreement, and mass nouns like vejr and mælk that have no plural.
- Countable and Uncountable NounsC1 — Mass vs count nouns in Danish — meget vs mange, lidt vs få, the preposition-free partitive (et glas vand), and where Danish and English disagree.