The Plural of Nouns
The two terms singular and plural describe the number of objects or persons that you are talking about. If a noun is in the singular, you are only talking about one object. If it is in the plural, you are referring to two or more objects.
The plural of countable nouns
Nouns that you can count as separate items are called countable nouns. Take for example the word coin: you can have one coin, two coins, three coins, four coins and so on.
The plural of most nouns is formed by adding an s to the end of the noun:
- one coin
two coins - one house two houses
- one brother three brothers
- one cat two cats
- one book three books
- one plane two planes
- one train two trains
- one car two cars
There are some exceptions, however.
There are nouns that end with the sound /dʒ/ or /tʃ/ as in sandwich, witch, the sound /s/ as in class, glass, the sound /z/ as in blouse or the sound /ks/ as in box, fox. You can hear the sound endings when you say the words out loud.
To form the plural for these words, add es to the end of the noun:
- one sandwich two sandwiches
- one match two matches
- one class two classes
- one box two boxes
Using Drag and Drop, decide which nouns need the plural ending -s and which nouns need the plural ending -es.