Learn Dutch: Wij bestellen een frisdrank in het café. - We order a soft drink in the café.

To make café plural, you add 's (apostrophe-s) to get café's. In Dutch, if a noun ends in a single open vowel sound (like a, i, o, u, or é), we usually add an apostrophe before the plural -s so the pronunciation of the vowel is preserved.

Would the plural of frisdrank also use an '-s'?

No, it becomes frisdranken. Nouns ending in a consonant usually take the -en suffix for their plural form. The -s suffix you are learning in this lesson is mostly used for nouns ending in a vowel, or for many modern loanwords from other languages.

Does frisdrank literally mean "fresh drink"?

Yes, it is a combination of fris (fresh or cool) and drank (drink). However, in everyday Dutch, frisdrank specifically means soda or a carbonated soft drink, not just any fresh beverage.

Why is the verb bestellen used here instead of bestelt?

The subject of the sentence is wij (we), which is plural. In Dutch, plural subjects almost always use the full dictionary form (the infinitive) of the verb, which normally ends in -en.

Why do we use for instead of ?