Singular and plural nouns

1. Nouns

A noun is a person, an animal, a place, or a thing.

Examples: a dog, a town, a phone, a cat, an orange, an egg, and a beach.

In writing, names of people, places, days, months, etc. begin with a capital letter. 

Examples: Friday, Mr. Joe, Paris, and June.

2. Singular and plural nouns

Most nouns can be singular or plural.

 Examples:  a cat - two cars - an apple- five apples- melon - three melons- an egg- some eggs

For the plural form of most nouns, add -s.

Examples:  bottle- bottles, pen- pens, Window- windows, coin - coins.

For nouns that end in s, ss, ch, and x sounds (and potato, tomato), we add -es at the end of the word.

Examples:  box - boxes, moss mosses, bus - buses, potato-potatoes.

For nouns that end with fe, change f to v and add -es.

Examples:  wolf- wolves, wife - wives, leaf leaves, life-lives

For nouns that end in consonant (b. c d etc+y(ay ey oy), change y to į and add -es and-s.

 Examples:  day - days, baby - babies, toy toys, family families.

The plural form of a few nouns is different, we call these irregular nouns.

Examples:  man- men, woman- women, fish- fish, tooth - teeth, foot-feet, deer child- children, mouse - mice.

3. Noun + verb 

We use different verb forms with singular and plural nouns.

Examples:

Our teacher is British.

Those students are Moroccan.

The bus leaves at 8.30.

The buses leave from the town center.

Some nouns are always plural.

Examples: shorts, scissors, glasses, jeans, clothes, and trousers.