Plural nouns
One day when I’m at the park, there might be one dog there. The next day there might be more than one dog. Here’s how I could describe the park each day:
Yesterday I saw a dog at the park.
Today I saw many dogs at the park.
In the first sentence, I’m using the singular noun - ‘dog’. In the second sentence, I’m using the plural noun - ‘dogs’. I made the singular noun ‘dog’ into a plural noun by adding ‘s’ to the end of it. Most nouns can be made into plurals by adding an ‘s’ to the end. But there are some exceptions:
There is one country with a larger population than India.
There are many countries with smaller populations than India.
For some nouns that end in ‘y’, you need to ditch the ‘y’ and then add ‘ies’ to make them into plural nouns.
After I ran yesterday I had a sore calf.
After I ran today I had sore calves.
For some nouns that end in ‘f’, ditch the ‘f’ and add ‘ves’ to make them plural.
I have one potato.
He has many potatoes.
Some nouns that end in ‘o’ need an ‘es’ added to them to make them plural (they keep the ‘o’ though).
I have one cactus in my garden
The desert has a lot of cacti.
Some nouns that end with ‘us’ replace the ‘us’ with ‘i’ to become plural.
My uncle has one sheep on his farm
My grandmother has lots of sheep on her farm.
Sometimes exactly the same word is used for both the singular and the plural form of the noun.
There is only one man over here.
There are many men over there.
The hardest nouns to change into plurals are those that form their irregularly. For instance, man becomes men, woman becomes women and tooth becomes teeth. A very common mistake is made with the words ‘dice’ and ‘die’. ‘Die’ is the singular form; ‘dice’ is the plural form. So you’re either rolling one die or two dice when you’re playing Monopoly!
Click here to move on to the next topic: Concrete nouns