Easy Englih Grammar: Singular and Plural Nouns

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Nouns

Singular and Plural Nouns

What is a noun?

A noun is a word that refers to (one / more than one) person, animal, place, thing, or idea. For example we’ve got words like teacher, cat, park, house, and nationality.

There are two types of nouns that I think you're already familiar with. They are singular and plural nouns. Singular nouns refer to one (1)  meanwhile plural nouns refer to more than one (>1). 

Here are examples of singular and plural nouns.

  1. one baby – babies
  2. a car – two cars
  3. my house – some old houses
  4. the student – those students
  5. this room – these rooms

In terms of using nouns in English, noun have multiple roles in sentences: 
  • as a subject like the example below: The little boy is playing sand alone.
  • as a complement predicative like in the sentence: My father is a police officer.
  • as a direct or indirect object of a verb, like in this sentence: Jimmy gave Lucy his keys. 
  • an object of preposition, like in the sentence of: The little boy is playing with a girl now.
Beside those roles, we need to pay attention to how nouns (as a subject) agree to the verb forms. It means if we have singular nouns, we use singular verbs, for example: "My house is the white house across the parking area."  And, if we have plural nouns, we use plural verbs, like in this sentence: "The houses in this area were built in the 1990s."

Next, we are going to discuss about how to make plural, especially regular forms, from singular nouns. You can say that it will depend on the spelling and pronunciation of the nouns. 

Picture 1: Rules on how to make plural, especially regular forms, from singular nouns

How about making plural, but irregular, forms from singular nouns? We have the common three rules as you can see in the picture below.

Picture 2: Rules on how to make plural, especially irregular forms, from singular nouns

"You should check a learner dictionary if you're in doubt. A good learner dictionary will help you to make the plural of any nouns. If the dictionary doesn't show, then you can assume that it's regular. And you can check the previous rule about regular plural."



You can also watch this lesson in my YouTube channel. The link is provided below: 
1. Easy English Grammar - Singular and Plural Nouns


I have provided the Presentation slides. They are presented in both English and Indonesian languages. You can download the presentation freely by visiting this link: 
(I will update the link soon. Thanks for waiting.)









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