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Singular and plural nouns

Most countable nouns have both a singular and a plural form, the singular for one thing and the plural for two or more.

REGULAR PLURALS
The regular way of changing a noun from singular to plural is to add -s at the end:

• cat / cats, book / books, house / houses

For nouns ending in  consonant + -y, you drop the -y and add -ies to form the plural:

• family / families

For nouns ending in -o, you add -es to form the plural.

• tomato / tomatoes, potato / potatoes

IRREGULAR PLURALS

1. With seven nouns you change the vowel: man / men,  woman  / women,  foot / feet,  goose / geese,  mouse / mice,  tooth / teeth, louse / lice
2. With a few nouns you change the final -f to -ve before adding the -s ending: knife / knives,  leaf / leaves, wife / wives,  half / halves (Some nouns in this group have a regular plural as well: scarfs and scarves, hoofs and hooves. Both possibilities are correct.)
3. With three nouns you add -en: ox / oxen, child / children, brother / brethren (only in the religious sense)
4. A  few nouns which have been borrowed from foreign languages have an irregular plural. They include: stimulus / stimuli, crisis / crises, criterion / criteria, phenomenon / phenomena. Often these nouns have two plurals: they have developed a regular plural but have also kept their original irregular one. In these cases, the regular form is more informal and popular; the irregular form tends to be used by specialists.
• There are no certain formulas for success. (informal)
• We  have to learn all the relevant chemical formulae. (specialist)
5. A few nouns have no plural ending, but you can still use them in a singular or plural way: they include the names of some animals (such as sheep, deer, cod), certain nationalities (such as Portuguese, Swiss), some nouns expressing quantity (such as ton, p (=”pence)),” and a few others (such as aircraft, crossroads, kennels, offspring).

• The sheep was making a noise. The sheep were making a noise.

NOUNS WHICH ARE ONLY SINGULAR OR PLURAL

Several nouns are used only in the singular, particularly proper names (Smith, Monday), uncountable names (music, geography, advice) and some exceptions ending in -s (physics, billiards)

Some other nouns are used only in the plural, such as, nouns refering to objects consisting of two parts (scissors, trousers), nouns ending in -s and only used in the plural (stairs, thanks), and nouns expressing the idea of a group of people or animasl (police, folk, cattle, poultry)

EXERCISES

• English at Home- exercise

The most common verb-noun collocations

This test at English-at-home will help you revise the most common combinations of verb and noun in English. Even if you make a mistake, reading the feedback provided will let you improve your English.

What to say in special situations

Do you know when you should say, good luck, bad luck, congratulations or happy birthday?

If you are not sure you might read the following page at English at home to check them and later on you might try the test to make sure you can use them properly.

Good luck!

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"Did you eat too much over the holidays? Or perhaps you want 2014 to be the start of a new, better life! Try our New Year Quiz to test your knowledge of useful English words and phrases to talk about the New Year."