ESL Blog: Singular and Plural Nouns

Hello students,

We've learned singular and plural nouns and spelling rules for plural -s. Now you have a chance to review everything. You should watch the videos, read and understand the rules and do some exercises. If you have any questions, please, ask me.

Irena

Here some spelling rules for plural nouns:

Rule #1 (General rule)

For most nouns, add -s.

Examples:
car - cars
table - tables
bag - bags
pen - pens

Rule #2

For nouns ending in -s, -ss, -x, -z, -ch, -sh, just add -es.

Examples:
bus - buses
box - boxes
bench - benches
church - churches

Exceptions (We double the last consonant before adding -es):
fez - fezzes
gas - gasses.

Rule #3

For nouns ending in -f and -fe, change the ending to -ves.

Examples:
calf - caves
half - haves
shelf - shelves
wolf -wolves

Exceptions:
cuff - cuffs
chef - chefs
belief - beliefs

Rule #4

For nouns ending in -y following by a consonant (-y goes after a consonant), we change -y to -i and add -es.

Examples:
city - cities
candy - candies
lady - ladies

For nouns ending in -y following by a vowel (-y goes after a vowel), we just add -s.

Examples:
boy - boys
day -days
toy - toys
donkey - donkeys

Rule #5 (nouns ending in -o)

For nouns ending in -o following by a vowel, add -s.

Examples:
radio - radios
stereo - stereos
video - videos

For nouns ending in -o following by a consonant, add -es.

Examples:
potato - potatoes
tomato - tomatoes
hero - heroes
domino - dominoes

Exceptions:
helo - helos
piano - pianos
photo - photos

There are dome exceptions. They are irregular plural nouns, and they don't have letter -s at the end for plural.

Exceptions:
a child -children
a foot - feet
a tooth - teeth
a goose - geese
a person - people
a man - men
a woman - women
an octopus - octopi
an aircraft - aircraft
a sheep - sheep
a shrimp - shrimp
a deer - deer
an ox - oxen
a mouse - mice