Plural Rules!

Hey folks,
Sometimes English learners, from pretty much any level, show difficulties on using correctly the plural while speaking.

Subject-Verb agreement is a much more complex difficulty that  also appears in a wide range of  levels and  seems to have no regard what so ever to the Plural rules usage, but in fact,
they are intimately related due to the fact that the ability to recognize those sounds like they are end up having the learner to block the use of Plurals in their speech and there forward to developing a Subject-Verb agreement problem.




Here are the rules to form the plurals:

singular + -s

singular	plural
a car	two cars
a cassette	two cassettes
a lamp	two lamps
a hat	two hats
a cup	two cups

Add -es after sibilants:

singular	plural
a box	two boxes
a sandwich	two sandwiches
a suitcase	two suitcases
a rose	two roses
a garage	two garages

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Substitute y after consonant with -ies:

singular	plural
a city	two cities
a lady	two ladies

Add -s after vowel + y:

singular	plural
a boy	two boys
a day	two days

There are two forms of the plural of the word penny:
pennies -> You refer to the coins.
pence -> You refer to the price (how much sth. is).

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Nouns on -f or -fe:

add -s		substitute with -ves
singular	plural	singular	plural
a roof	two roofs	a thief	two thieves
a cliff	two cliffs	a wife	two wives
a sheriff	two sheriffs	a shelf	two shelves

There are two forms possible:

scarf - scarfs/scarves
hoof - hoofs/hooves

Add -s for words ending in -ff.

Always use a dictionary if you are not sure.

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Nouns on -o form the plural by adding -s or -es.

add -s		substitute with -ves
singular	plural	singular	plural
a disco	two discos	a tomato	two tomatoes
a piano	two pianos	a potato	two potatoes
a photo	two photos	a hero	two heroes

Some nouns can have two plural forms:

buffalo - buffalos/buffaloes
mosquito - mosquitos/mosquitoes
tornado - tornados/tornadoes

There is no rule when to use -s or -es. We often add -s with technical words.

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Irregular plural forms:

singular	plural
a man	two men
a woman	two women
a child	two children
a mouse	two mice
a tooth	two teeth
a goose	two geese
a foot	two feet
an ox	two oxen

And here are the rules for the pronunciation of plurals :


''In American English, the sound of "s" depends on which sound comes before it.

1. If the noun ends in an unvoiced consonant sound: /f/, /k/, /p/, /t/, /th/-(thin), pronounce "s" as /s/.

2. When it ends in a voiced consonant sound, /b/, /d/, /g/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /ng/, /r/ or with a vowel sound, /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/, pronounce "s" as /z/.

3. If it ends with /s/, /z/, /sh/, /ch/-chair, /zh/-the second "g" in garage, /dz/-(j), pronounce "s" or "-es" as /iz/.

In other words, if the noun ends with a sound other than the 5 unvoiced consonants, pronounce "s" with a /z/ (or with an /iz/ as the case may be).'


All in all something relatively simple as using plurals to plural ideas isn't normally only associated with cognitive abilities, which is a barrier for Japanese learners for example, but a more complex situation involving the phonological ability to recognize plural sound patterns and therefore use them accordingly.