Singular and Plural Nouns For beginners

Learn how to form and use singular and plural nouns, like 'cat' and 'cats'. Easy explanations, clear examples, and practice exercises included.

grammatical number nouns plural nouns singular nouns

"Singular and Plural Nouns" in English Grammar

What Are Singular and Plural Nouns?

A singular noun refers to just one person, place, thing, or idea. But a plural noun refers to more than one person, place, thing, or idea.

Formation

Most plural nouns are formed by adding '-s' to the end of a singular noun. For example:

Singular Nouns	Plural Nouns
cat	cats
boy	boys
cup	cups
pencil	pencils
desk	desks
apple	apples

Spelling

If a singular noun ends in s, x, z, ch, or sh, the plural form is created by adding '-es'.

Singular Nouns	Plural Nouns
church	churches
boss	bosses
dish	dishes
box	boxes
quiz	quizzes

If a singular noun ends in a consonant followed by '-y', the plural form is created by replacing the '-y' with '-ies'. For example:

Singular Nouns	Plural Nouns
city	cities
baby	babies

Irregular Nouns

Some nouns have irregular plural forms. For example:

Singular Nouns	Plural Nouns
man	men
woman	women
child	children
tooth	teeth
foot	feet
fish	fish
sheep	sheep

Verb Agreement

When using nouns as subjects, it's important to use singular verbs with singular nouns and plural verbs with plural nouns. Pay attention to the examples:

Example

Your eyes are blue.

A glass is on the table.

Quiz:

Which of the following is the correct plural form of the word "city"?

citys

cities

citie

citieses

Match each word with the correct plural ending.

cat

baby

fish

dish

irregular form

-s

-es

-ies

Fill in the blanks with the correct plural form of the nouns in parenthesis.

The

are playing soccer. (boy)

There are five

in the box. (pencil)

We visited three

last summer. (country)

He ate three

for lunch. (sandwich)

She saw three

in the street. (man)

Fill out the table with the correct singular and plural forms:

Singular noun	Plural noun
teacher
	countries
	teeth
brush
sheep

Which sentence uses the correct verb form with the singular and plural noun?

The children is playing outside.

The box is on the table.

This city are beautiful.

The quizzes is difficult.

Comments

(2)

Mar 2024

The school organized a trip to a farm for the children. There were a lot of animals like herds of sheep, goats and cattle. My sister told me that she shrieked when a goat suddenly ate the grass from her hands.

Lia safitri

Nov 2023

Hallo i am lia

What Are Singular and Plural Nouns?
- Spelling
Irregular Nouns
Verb Agreement

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Nouns

Nouns are among the first lessons when studying a new language. In other words, we have to be able to name things first, then make sentences with them.

Proper and Common Nouns

Nouns can be categorized based on what they refer to. Common nouns refer to general items, while proper nouns specify unique entities.

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

It is important to know if a noun is countable or not. It can help form correct sentences using articles and verbs that agree with the noun.

Plural-Only Nouns

Here, we will discuss some nouns in the English language that are always used as a plural noun, i.e. they don't have a singular form.

Collective Nouns

If we want to represent certain individual nouns as one entity we can make use of collective nouns. In this lesson, you'll learn about their structure and uses.

Abstract and Concrete Nouns

Based on what we can or cannot perceive with our five senses, we can categorize nouns into two groups: abstract and common nouns. Start learning!

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