Plural nouns dropping -e

Dropping the "e"

When a Danish noun ends in an unstressed -el, -en, or -er, it drops that e before adding the plural ending.

For example, en cykel (a bicycle) becomes cykler, and en kælder (a basement) becomes kældre.

Since we have a lot of junk in the basement, we want to sort all our old bicycles.
Da vi har meget skrammel i kælderen, vil vi sortere alle vores gamle cykler.
We have bicycles and old kettles in both basements.
Vi har cykler og gamle kedler i begge kældre.

More Basement Finds

This pattern applies to many everyday items, like en vabel (a blister), en sadel (a saddle), and en spatel (a spatula), which drop their e before adding -er. If the noun has a double consonant before the e, it drops one of them too: en gaffel (a fork) becomes gafler.

The boys got blisters from repairing their bicycles and saddles.
Drengene fik vabler af at reparere deres cykler og sadler.
There are many forks and spatulas with long handles in the kitchen.
Der er mange gafler og spatler med lange håndtag i køkkenet.

The Definite Plural

The e stays dropped in the definite plural. Just add -ne to the shortened plural form: cykler becomes cyklerne, and sadler becomes sadlerne.

The woman would like to repair the saddles on her old bicycles.
Kvinden vil gerne reparere sadlerne på sine gamle cykler.
The bicycles in the basement lack air in the valves.
Cyklerne i kælderen mangler luft i ventilerne.
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