Showing posts with label irregular plurals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label irregular plurals. Show all posts

Friday, May 24, 2013

Lesson 58--Unusual Plurals



English loves to bring in words from other countries.  We have adapted many into English.  This can be a problem for foreign learners because they might be too similar, or too different.  Here is a short list (this is not all of them) of words that have unusual plural forms because they come from another language.  Today's examples are either Latin or Greek.


Singular                               Plural

oasis                                                             oases
crisis                                                            crises
phenomenon                                                phenomena                                                     
cactus                                                           cacti
bacterium                                                     bacteria
criterion                                                       criteria
formula                                                        formulae
nucleus                                                         nuclei
fungus                                                          fungi
appendix                                                      appendices

Please take a moment to look up these words (and their pronunciation) in the dictionary--there is an online dictionary that will pronounce the words if you want to hear them (howjsay.com)

Friday, March 29, 2013

Lesson 36--Irregular Plurals (part 2)

Another group of irregular plurals is this group of words that end in "f" and its plural is formed by adding "ves" to the stem.  Once again, these are worth remembering.

Singular                       Plural

calf                              calves
half                              halves
knife                            knives
leaf                              leaves
life                               lives
loaf                              loaves
self                              selves
shelf                            shelves
thief                             thieves
wife                             wives
wolf                             wolves

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Lesson 35--Irregular Plurals (part 1)

There are a few irregular plural words in English.  They are definitely worth remembering.


Singular                       Plural

child                            children
foot                             feet
goose                           geese
louse                            lice
man                             men
mouse                          mice
ox                                oxen
person                          people
tooth                            teeth
woman                        women