Questions & Answers about Wij wassen de messen en de lepels.
Why does the singular mes get a double 's' in the plural messen?
In Dutch, if a noun ends in a single consonant with a short vowel before it (like the short 'e' in mes), you have to double the consonant when adding -en. This keeps the vowel short. If it were spelled mesen, the 'e' would be pronounced with a long 'e' sound!
Why do we add -en to mes but just -s to lepel to make them plural?
Most Dutch nouns take -en in the plural, like messen. However, nouns that end in unstressed sounds like -el, -er, -en, or -em (like lepel) usually take an -s instead. Saying lepelen would be awkward to pronounce, so it simply becomes lepels.
I learned earlier that the singular is het mes. Why does this sentence say de messen?
No matter if a noun is a de-word or a het-word in the singular, the plural form will always use de as the definite article. Since messen and lepels are both plural, they both use de.
In this lesson about quantitative er, why isn't er used anywhere in this sentence?