✨ Lesson 1: Countable Nouns & Expanded Plural Rules
Welcome to our A2 Grammar Essentials series! We will start by looking deeper at nouns. A countable noun1 is a noun that we can count. It has both a singular and a plural2 form.
In A1, we learned the basic rules for making nouns plural (like adding '-s' or '-es'). Today, we will review those and learn some new, more advanced spelling rules.
Review: The Basic Rules
- Most nouns, add '-s': boat → boats, house → houses, friend → friends.
- Nouns ending in -s, -sh, -ch, -x, -z, add '-es': bus → buses, dish → dishes, watch → watches.
New Rule: Nouns ending in '-y'
The rule for words ending in 'y' depends on the letter before it.
- [Consonant] + y → Change 'y' to '-ies': city → cities, family → families, story → stories.
- [Vowel] + y → Just add '-s': boy → boys, key → keys, day → days.
New Rule: Nouns ending in '-f' or '-fe'
For many nouns ending in -f or -fe, we change the ending to -ves.
- leaf → leaves
- knife → knives
- life → lives
- wife → wives
Exception3 Alert: Some words are exceptions to this rule! For example: roof → roofs, chef → chefs.
New Rule: Nouns ending in '-o'
For nouns ending in -o, we often add -es.
- potato → potatoes
- tomato → tomatoes
- hero → heroes
Exception Alert: Common exceptions include: photo → photos, piano → pianos.
Irregular4 Plurals
Some nouns do not follow any rules. You must remember them.
- man → men
- woman → women
- child → children
- person → people
- foot → feet
- tooth → teeth
- fish → fish (the same!)
- sheep → sheep (the same!)
🧠 Practice Quiz: What's the Plural Form?
Write the correct plural form for each singular noun.
- one city → two _________
→ cities - one knife → three ________
→ knives - one person → many _______
→ people - one photo → ten ________
→ photos - one baby → two ________
→ babies - one fish → a lot of ________
→ fish
📝 Homework: Correct the Sentences
Find the mistake in each sentence and write the correction.
Example: I have two childs. → I have two children.
1. The cook uses many knifes.
→ ___________________________________
2. There are beautiful citys in Cambodia.
→ ___________________________________
3. My two foots are tired from walking.
→ ___________________________________
(Answers: 1. knives, 2. cities, 3. feet)
Vocabulary Glossary
- Countable Noun: (Noun) - នាមរាប់បាន (niam roăp' ban) - A noun for something that can be counted (e.g., one book, two books). ↩
- Plural: (Adjective) - ពហុវចនៈ (pohuvochna) - Meaning more than one. ↩
- Exception: (Noun) - ការលើកលែង (kaa lœ̄k'lêng) - Something that does not follow a rule. ↩
- Irregular: (Adjective) - មិនទៀងទាត់ (mĭn tieng'toăt) - Not following the usual rules or patterns. ↩