Count nouns have two forms: singular and plural.
Singular count nouns refer to one person or thing:
a teacher | a book | a wish | an idea |
Plural count nouns refer to more than one person or thing:
teachers | books | wishes | ideas |
Singular count nouns
Singular count nouns cannot be used alone. They must have a determiner:
the English teacher | that book | a wish | my latest idea |
- Singular count nouns 1
- Singular count nouns 2
Plural count nouns
We usually add –s to make a plural noun:
book | > | books |
school | > | schools |
friend | > | friends |
We add –es to nouns ending in –s, –ch, –sh, –ss, –x and –o:
class | > | classes |
watch | > | watches |
gas | > | gases |
wish | > | wishes |
box | > | boxes |
potato | > | potatoes |
When a noun ends in a consonant and –y, we make the plural with –ies:
lady | > | ladies |
country | > | countries |
party | > | parties |
If a noun ends in a vowel and –y, we simply add –s:
boy | > | boys |
day | > | days |
play | > | plays |
Some common nouns have irregular plurals:
man | > | men |
woman | > | women |
child | > | children |
person | > | people |
foot | > | feet |
- Plural count nouns 1
- Plural count nouns 2
Plural count nouns do not have a general determiner when they refer to people or things in general:
Computers are very expensive.
Do you sell old books?
But they may have a specific determiner:
Those computers are very expensive.
The books in that shop are very expensive.
Her sisters live there.
or a quantifier:
some new books | a few teachers | lots of good ideas |
or a numeral:
two new books | three wishes |
- Plural count nouns 3
- Plural count nouns 4
- Plural count nouns 5
Comments
Hello,
Happy New Year. I would like to ask if the following is correct
We will see how the news cover events or
how news cover events or how media cover events
Thank you in advance
Hello Nagie23,
Here I'd use 'the media': 'how the media cover events'. In this usage, 'the media' refers to organisations that report (or 'cover') current events -- the reporting or the things reported are called 'the news'.
Does that make sense?
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello, The Team.
I have three questions:
There are 3 cars in front of my house. But these cars have different colour.
My first question is "These cars have different colour" or "different colours" with an 's'?
My second question is, which one is correct? Saying, "There are white, black, and green cars in front of my house." or I will say with "car" as a single "There is white, black and green car in front of my house." for the reason their colour is different.
And My third question is, I realised when I write "colour, realise" in British way in the comment, the red colour appears under the vocabularies. I wonder why The British Council don't except these kinds of writing.
Thanks for your reply in advance.
Hi knownman,
Good questions! I'll put my answers below.
Best wishes,
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Thanks, Jonathan for the enlightening answers. And, I am sorry for the confusion. You're right. The spelling issue was caused by my browser. When I set a new program or something like that I always choose English(UK) option. Anyway, I changed my language setting to the English(UK). I thank you and am sorry again.
No worries at all :)
Jonathan
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello. Could you please help me? Which one is correct?
1- One and a half hours are allowed for the exam.
2- One and a half hours is allowed for the exam.
Thank you. Really, I appreciate your efforts.
Hello Ahmed Imam,
Since 'hours' is plural, 1 is the correct choice.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Thank you so much for your quick reply.
What about the following sentence?
- Five hours is not enough to do this job.
Thank you.
Hello Ahmed Imam,
That's a good point. In this case, I think both 'is' and 'are' are OK. 'hours' is plural and so it's easy to see why 'are' is correct given that. But often people say 'is' here because 'Five hours' is conceptualized as a single period of time and therefore is conceptualized as a single (countable) subject.
Hope that's not too confusing.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
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