Spanish Nouns
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The Plural in Spanish
In general, to form the plural of nouns and adjectives in Spanish we add -s to words ending in a vowel and -es to words ending in a consonant, the way of making the Spanish plural is close to the one of doing it in English: el libro (the book) = los libros (the books) el profesor (the professor) = los profesores (professors).
In General if a word ends with anything except a z you can add an s or es (if it's ending with a consonant). But exceptions always exist, like the ones below:
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Plural in Spanish |
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When a word is ending in an unstressed vowel add the letter s. like in: la casa - las casas, la picina - las picinas. When a word is ending in a consonant add the letters es. el señor - los señores, la ciudad - las ciudades. When a word is ending in s preceded by an unstressed vowel generally the plural stays the same in both singular and plural: el lunes (Monday) - los lunes (Mondays), la crisis (the crisis), las crisis (the crises). When a word is ending in z change the ending zes to ces. el pez (fish) - los peces(fish), el juez (the judge) - los jueces (judges), la luz ( the light) - las luces (the lights). When a word is ending in n in an unstressed syllable add an accent to the appropriate vowel to maintain the correct stress: el examen (the exam) los exámenes (exams). When a word is ending with a y the plural will need -es even if the y is a vowel, due to the phonetic nature of the word: el rey (the king) - los reyes (kings). |
Don't get confused to see all these exceptions, 95 % of the Spanish words follow the first rule, which is simply: add -s to a word ending in a vowel, and -es to a word ending in a consonant.
Summary:
It’s easy to make the plural out of singular, from both masculine and plural, the table below will refresh what you just learned, note that these rules can be applied on adjectives as well.
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Nouns in Spanish |
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When a noun ends in a vowel, add -s. |
libro |
libros |
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When a noun ends in any consonant except –z. |
señor |
señores |
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When a noun ends in a -z, change the -z to a -c and add -es. |
luz |
luces |