Questions & Answers about We willen menu's en pinda's.
Why do menu's and pinda's have an apostrophe before the 's'?
In Dutch, when a singular word ends in a single open vowel letter like -a, -i, -o, -u, or -y, you must add an apostrophe before the plural -s. This protects the pronunciation. If you just wrote menus or pindas without the apostrophe, Dutch reading rules would force you to pronounce the final vowels with a "short" sound instead of their normal "long" sound.
Are there plurals that just take a normal -s without the apostrophe?
Yes! The apostrophe is only used to protect those specific open vowel sounds at the end of a word. If a word ends in a consonant (like appel) or an unaccented -e (like tafel), you just stick the -s right onto the end to make it plural: appels and tafels.
Why is the verb willen and not wil?
Because the subject is we (a plural pronoun), you need the plural form of the verb. In Dutch, plural subjects (we, jullie, and ze) almost always use the full infinitive (dictionary) form of the verb, which usually ends in -en. You would only use wil for singular subjects like ik (I) or hij (he).
Does the apostrophe change how I pronounce the words?