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I'm struggling with this exercise that I found in a German grammar book: I have to combine some nouns with the correct suffix to form their plural

Nouns:

  1. der Schnee
  2. das Gepäck
  3. der Regen
  4. der Rat
  5. der Käse
  6. der Sport
  7. der Schmuck
  8. das Alter

Suffixes:

  1. stufen
  2. waren
  3. schläge
  4. stücke
  5. massen
  6. arten
  7. sorten
  8. fälle

The first one is given as an example: "der Schnee" -> "die Scheemassen".

I haven't got a clue about the other ones (apart from "der Regen" which I think should be "die Regenfälle"). I looked up the nouns in various online dictionaries but I couldn't find these "strange" plural forms (usually the ones given are much more simple, like: -e/-en).

I guess that most of these forms are quite uncommon in both spoken and written German, is that true? Could someone please help me complete the exercise?

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  • Welcome to German.SE. Did you just try a "brute force" and looked up a dictionary if it e.g. knows "Gepäckwaren" and sort them out one by another? Because besides knowing the "plurals" I'd also have no clue how to deduct it spontanously. Sep 18, 2020 at 14:48
  • You may rather find the singulars (Schneemasse, Regenfall, ...) of the combined plurals in a dictionary Sep 19, 2020 at 7:53
  • Also not that e.g. Rat does have a "normal" plural Räte (as used in the word Räterepublik), but that's because Rat has several meanings to begin with (similar to Bank having two plurals Banken/Bänke with its different meanings) Sep 19, 2020 at 7:55

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You are right about Regen/Regenfälle. Note however, that Regenfälle is not a plural of Regen. The plural of Regen is Regen, but it is rarely used. However, the word Regenfall exists. It denotes, in a sense, one instance of Regen, and it has a perfectly normal plural, which is Regenfälle. So this can be used as a substitute when you need a plural of Regen.

For the others, just check your dictionary which combinations exist.

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