← English lessons English as an Additional Language · English Wikibooks

Plural forms of nouns

Generally, making plurals (more than 1 of something) is very easy in English. For almost all nouns we form the plural by adding s. * I have an apple * I have 5 apples. For nouns which end with the letter y we form the plural by removing the y and adding ies. * I have a fly * I have 5 flies. For…

948
cleaned native characters
3
source sections
4245102
source revision

Overview

Generally, making plurals (more than 1 of something) is very easy in English.

Plural Formation

For almost all nouns we form the plural by adding s. * I have an apple * I have 5 apples. For nouns which end with the letter y we form the plural by removing the y and adding ies. * I have a fly * I have 5 flies. For nouns which end with the letter s (dress), ch (beach), x (box), sh (bush) or z (quiz), we form the plural by adding es. * I have a bus. * I have 5 buses.

Irregular Noun Plural Formation

There are also a small number of nouns which are irregular. The first word in the following list is the singular form and the second word is the plural form: * child - children * man - men * woman - women * foot - feet * tooth - teeth * goose - geese * mouse - mice * fish - fish * sheep - sheep * deer - deer * advice - advice * information - information * data - data As you can see, with some words there is no change to form the plural. The plural form and the singular form are exactly the same.

English as an Additional Language

Continue this series