U1.9: Great places to be - Spelling: Making nouns plural

Last updated 4 months ago

2 questions

Spelling changes when we make nouns plural
We make most nouns plural by adding -s:
book → books

However:
For nouns ending in -ch, -o, -s and -sh, we add -es:
match → matches; mass → masses
For nouns ending in -y (e.g. study), we change -y to -i and add -es:
study → studies
When the word ends in -ay, -ey or -oy, we don’t change -y to -i:
toy → toys
When the noun ends in -f or -fe, we often, but not always, change the -f to -v:
knife → knives
Some nouns are irregular:
man → men; woman → women; child → children;
foot → feet; tooth → teeth

Notes
Some nouns ending in -ics are singular:
politics, physics
These nouns ending in -s may be singular or plural:
species, series, means
The zoo contains one species of elephant and two species of kangaroo.

IELTS candidates often make spelling mistakes when writing nouns in the plural. Write the plural form of these words. Then check your answers by reading the Language reference (page 120).

e.g. 1. visitor --> visitors
boss -->_______ 
boy --> _______ 
foot --> _______ 
man --> _______ 
match --> _______ 
party --> _______ 
wife --> _______ 

Write the plural form of each of these words.

e.g. person --> people.
child --> _______ 
country -->_______ 
city -->_______ 
life -->_______ 
family -->_______ 
watch -->_______ 
potato -->_______ 
activity -->_______ 
crash -->_______ 