Most nouns make their plurals by simply adding –s to the end (e.g. cat/cats, book/books, journey/journeys). Some do change their endings, though, the main types of noun that do this are:
1. Words ending in a consonant + "y": "y" changes to "i" and add "es".
party / parties (fiesta/s)
city / cities (ciudad/es)
2. Words ending in a vowel + "and" add an "s".
boy / boys (chico/s)
toy / toys (juguete/s)
3. Words ending in "s", "ss", "sh", "ch", "x", "or" add "is".
bus / buses (bus/es)
glass / glasses (copa/s)
brush / brushes (cepillo/s)
watch / watches (reloj/es)
box / boxes (caja/s)
tomato / tomatoes (tomate/s)
There’s one exception to this rule. If the -ch ending is pronounced with a ‘k’ sound, you add -s rather than -es:
singular plural
stomach stomachs
epoch epochs
4. Words that end in -f or -fe usually change the f sound to a v sound and add s or -es.
leaf / leaves (hoja/s)
wife / wives (esposa/s)
There are, however, exceptions: more than one dwarf = dwarfs; more than one roof = roofs
SpellingCity gives an interesting list of words that includes many of the rules discussed above.
Fingers
Many other nouns are pluralized in an irregular manner. There are two cases:
Foxes
1. When the plural and singular do not change.
fish (peces o pescados) sheep (ovejas)
Wishes
2.
When the plural varies irregularly. There are several nouns that have
irregular plural forms. Plurals formed in this way are sometimes called
mutated (or mutating) plurals.Cities
more than one child = children
more than one woman = women
Visitors
more than one goose = geese
more than one barracks = barracks
Ladies
more than one man = men
more than one person = people
Classes
more than one deer = deer
more than one tooth = teeht
Wolves
more than one foot = feet
more than one goose = geese
Mice
more than one louse = lice
more than one cactus = cacti
Branches
more than one appendix = appendices
more than one ox = oxen
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This is a really good article on some of the reasons that English is so difficult. One mouse, ten mice, one house, ten houses! One ox, two oxen, one fox, two foxes! One beep, two beeps, one sheep, two sheep! English just makes no sense at all!
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