Nouns

Nouns

A noun is a word for a person, place, thing, or idea.

• person: teacher, boy
• place: school, park
• thing: book, apple
• idea: love, time

Plural Nouns

A plural noun means more than one.

Regular Plurals

Most nouns add -s to the end of the word to form the plural.

• cat → cats
• book → books
• car → cars

If a noun ends in -s, -sh, -ch, -x, -o, we usually add -es to the end of the word.

• box → boxes
• bus → buses
• potato → potatoes

Irregular Plurals

Some nouns do not follow the regular rules. These are irregular plurals, and they need to be memorized.

Examples

Singular	Plural
sky	skies
child	children
man	men
woman	women
mouse	mice
foot	feet
tooth	teeth
fish	fish

Articles

The Definite Article: the

We use the when we talk about one specific thing. We can use the with singular and plural nouns.

• the dog (a specific dog)
• the apples (specific apples)

The Indefinite Articles: a and an

We use a and an when we talk about any one thing, not a specific one. Use a when the next word starts with a consonant and an when the following word starts with a vowel.

• a + consonant sound
  • a cat
  • a book
• an + vowel sound (a, e, i, o, u)
  • an apple
  • an orange

We do not use a or an with plural nouns.

• cats (not a cats)
• apples (not an apples)