What are the five Swedish declension classes?

They are grouped by plural ending: class 1 adds -or (flicka → flickor), class 2 adds -ar (bil → bilar), class 3 adds -er or -r (park → parker), class 4 adds -n (äpple → äpplen), and class 5 takes no ending (hus → hus). The first three are en-words; the last two are ett-words.

How does gender affect the plural?

Common-gender en-words usually fall into classes 1–3 and take -or, -ar or -er. Neuter ett-words usually fall into classes 4–5: a vowel ending adds -n, while a consonant ending takes no plural ending at all.

Why does the tool show several options?

Swedish plural choice is partly lexical, so the ending is not fully predictable from spelling. The tool shows every plausible class for the gender and ending you give, so you can match it against a dictionary.

How do I handle irregular nouns?

Some common nouns change their stem vowel or are simply irregular, such as man → män and bok → böcker. These cannot be derived from a rule, so always check a dictionary for high-frequency irregulars.

Yes. The declension rules are bundled into the page and run entirely in your browser, so no noun you type is sent to a server.

Swedish Plural Helper

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The Swedish Plural Helper suggests how to form the indefinite plural of a Swedish noun by working through the language’s five traditional declension classes. Swedish plural endings depend on gender and stem ending, so the tool narrows the choice and shows the candidate forms.

How it works

The plural class is driven first by gender (en versus ett) and then by how the word ends.

en-words ending in -a → class 1 (-or). The final -a is dropped and -or is added: flicka → flickor, gata → gator.
en-words → class 2 (-ar) or class 3 (-er). Most other common-gender nouns take -ar (bil → bilar, pojke → pojkar), while many loanwords and words with a stressed final syllable take -er (park → parker). Words ending in a vowel add just -r.
ett-words ending in a vowel → class 4 (-n). A neuter noun ending in a vowel adds -n: äpple → äpplen.
ett-words ending in a consonant → class 5 (zero). A neuter noun ending in a consonant takes no plural ending at all: hus → hus, barn → barn.

Why several suggestions appear

Swedish plural choice is only partly predictable from spelling — it is partly stored per word in the lexicon. For that reason the tool shows every class that is plausible for the gender and ending you provide, and you confirm the right one against a dictionary.

Irregulars to watch

A handful of high-frequency nouns change their stem vowel and cannot be derived by rule: man → män, bok → böcker, hand → händer, fot → fötter. Treat these as vocabulary to memorise rather than outputs of a pattern.