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When I was studying German, I saw the following sentence:

Sie hat braune Haare.

The word "Haar" has neutral article and it is the object of the sentence. According to "German adjective ending reference tables" I checked out, it should have taken "es" not "e" because there are not any articles in the sentence and the object is in accusative form. However, it did not. Could someone explain why?

P.S: My German is very limited. Could you please explain it in English as much as possible.

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  • It's the same with Informationen which is uncountable in English, too. A counter example is pants where Germans scratch their head why one item is plural already.
    – AmigoJack
    Oct 14, 2020 at 21:29

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You could say either

Sie hat braune Haare.

or

Sie hat braunes Haar.

In the former, "Haare" is plural (which seems fitting, given that she has about 100000 single hairs on her head), whereas in the latter, "Haar" is singular and refers to the collective of hair(s) as a whole (similar to "Fell" (fur)) and uncountable.

Note that with some other adjectives, only the second form is commonly used, e.g.,

Sie hat volles Haar.

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    Note that while Sie hat braune Haare is not uncommon in German, the literal translation, "She has brown hairs", would never be used in English.
    – RDBury
    Oct 11, 2020 at 2:11
  • Also possible: ihr Haar ist braun or ihre Haare sind braun and sie ist brünett.
    – Crissov
    Oct 11, 2020 at 11:01
  • »Sie hat volle Haare« klingt ein bisschen, als hätte sie in Wodka geduscht ;)
    – Jan
    Oct 14, 2020 at 9:16

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