Ch 2 · Lesson 15

Noun plurals

Prescribed by the AQA specification.

The short version

The plural lives in the article, not the noun

the things
Why?

The written rule is add -s; the spoken rule is that the -s is silent. Chose and sound identical, so the only audible plural marker is the article: and against , and against . Train the ear on that vowel contrast and you stop missing plurals.

The one plural you can actually hear

the newspapers
Why?

Most French plural endings are silent, including the -x on and . The -al nouns are the exception: becomes , animal becomes , becomes , and the ending genuinely changes on the ear. Nouns already in -s, -x or -z never change at all.

That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.

Read the full article · 4 min read

Practice

Practise this lesson

10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 26 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 15 of 17 in this chapter

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