These Nouns Have No Plural? I See.

Bahasa Indonesia - Deutsch

It is important to check a German dictionary, if there is information about grammatical gender. My student Dea (see Oh, No, I Have Bought A Useless Dictionary) had a bad experience as she bought a German - Indonesian dictionary in a bookstore. That dictionary gives no information about the grammatical gender. It is then useless.

Although a dictionary already includes the grammatical gender, that is confusing, if dictionaries give different information. According to the book Mit Erfolg zu Start Deutsch, Uebungsbuch A1 + A2 (Stuttgart: Klett, 2008)  these following nouns have no plural:

die Butter, das Obst, das Wasser, das Geld, die Waesche, das Wetter, die Gesundheit, das Gemuese.

Then I checked in the dictionaries. In the dictionary "Deutsch - Indonesisches Woerterbuch", which is authored by Adolf Heuken (Jakarta: Gramedia, 1987) I found that these following nouns have plural: das Gemuese - die Gemuese, das Geld - die Gelder.

Further, it is interesting, what I found in the dictionary "Woerterbuch der deutschen Sprache", which is authored by Gerhard Wahrig (Muenchen: dtv, 1987). These following nouns have plural: das Wasser - die Wasser or die Waesser, das Geld - die Gelder, die Waesche - die Waeschen, das Wetter - die Wetter, die Gesundheit - die Gesundheiten, das Gemuese - die Gemuese.

There are some further explanations. "Das Wasser" has plural in term of mineral water / bottled water and similar. "Das Geld" is uncountable. "Die Gesundheit" is also uncountable.

Now, what does studio d A1 Deutsch als Fremdsprache Kurs- & Uebungsbuch (Berlin: Cornelsen Verlag, 2006) say? According to it these nouns have plural: das Wasser - die Wasser, das Geld - die Gelder.

Thus far, who is right? It is really confusing. But, you, foreign learners of German, feel encouraged to further learn German. The Germans themselves have various ideas.

I have asked my friends in Germany (I consider all friends :-) ) how it is in daily language.

Mrs Engelhardt in Karlsruhe:

To form plural of the nouns "Gemuese, Geld & Wasser":  instead of "die Gemuese" people say better "die Gemuesesorten" for example if people are in the market. "Die Gelder" - it is possible, also "die Geldstroeme". "Die Wasser" is used in term of poetry, example: die tiefen Wasser der Erinnerung... . If you see much water flows from the mountain, you say it better "die Baeche", in the term of sea "die Wasserfluten". It is grammatically possible to form the plural of "Gemuese, Wasser & Geld", however it is not common in the daily language.

Ulli in Hamburg:

"Wasser" in the plural would be "die Waesser", which is connected to mineral water / bottled water. The reason: there are various types and trademarks of mineral water - and the plural refers to that factor, not to the water itself. For water in general (water in the sea, river, lake, from the water tube, etc.) it has no plural.

"Geld": basically without plural. "Die Gelder" is very seldom and wouldn't be used in daily life. According to Ulli this special case will over challenge and confuse foreign learners of German. People would understand, but it sounds strange.

"Waesche": without plural. "Die Waeschen" is wrong according to his feeling. He never heard that word in his 48 years :-) life (his email was on 8th October 2012). However it is not used in daily life.

"Gemuese": "die Gemuese" is also a seldom case.

"Wetter": according to his feeling plural is impossible. There is also no need to form a plural. He never heard "die Wetter" either.

"Gesundheit": it is the same as "Wetter". Plural is impossible. According to his language feeling it is nonsense to form plural. However if the plural of this noun would be available, this is irrelevant and would confuse students.

So, it is not easy to choose a good dictionary. And we, foreigners, cannot decide which grammatical book is correct. Just use the available dictionaries and just ask further your German friends if you have doubt.

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