Ch 1 · Lesson 18

Noun plurals

Prescribed by the AQA specification.

The short version

The nouns that never change in the plural

,

Monday, Mondays
Why?

Multi-syllable nouns ending in an unstressed -s are identical in singular and plural, and the article carries the entire distinction. It also carries meaning: is 'on Monday', is 'on Mondays'. Stress that final syllable, or take a one-syllable noun, and the rule flips back to normal: , ; , .

A vowel adds -s, a consonant adds -es

, ; ,

one house, two houses; one gentleman, two gentlemen
Why?

Look at the last letter. After a vowel, add -s: , . After a consonant, add -es: , . A final -z is written c before that e, so becomes . Those three moves pluralise almost every noun you know.

The whole phrase goes plural, not just the noun

.

The houses are white.
Why?

The article and every adjective go plural with the noun: , . Gender still or , so despite the -a. Adding -es adds a syllable, so a written accent can drop: , .

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 30 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

Lesson 18 of 20 in this chapter

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