Count nouns have two forms: singular and plural.
Singular count nouns refer to one person or thing:
| a teacher | a book | a wish | an idea |
Plural count nouns refer to more than one person or thing:
| teachers | books | wishes | ideas |
Singular count nouns
Singular count nouns cannot be used alone. They must have a determiner:
| the English teacher | that book | a wish | my latest idea |
- Singular count nouns 1
- Singular count nouns 2
Plural count nouns
We usually add –s to make a plural noun:
| book | > | books |
| school | > | schools |
| friend | > | friends |
We add –es to nouns ending in –s, –ch, –sh, –ss, –x and –o:
| class | > | classes |
| watch | > | watches |
| gas | > | gases |
| wish | > | wishes |
| box | > | boxes |
| potato | > | potatoes |
When a noun ends in a consonant and –y, we make the plural with –ies:
| lady | > | ladies |
| country | > | countries |
| party | > | parties |
If a noun ends in a vowel and –y, we simply add –s:
| boy | > | boys |
| day | > | days |
| play | > | plays |
Some common nouns have irregular plurals:
| man | > | men |
| woman | > | women |
| child | > | children |
| person | > | people |
| foot | > | feet |
- Plural count nouns 1
- Plural count nouns 2
Plural count nouns do not have a general determiner when they refer to people or things in general:
Computers are very expensive.
Do you sell old books?
But they may have a specific determiner:
Those computers are very expensive.
The books in that shop are very expensive.
Her sisters live there.
or a quantifier:
| some new books | a few teachers | lots of good ideas |
or a numeral:
| two new books | three wishes |
- Plural count nouns 3
- Plural count nouns 4
- Plural count nouns 5
Hello Ahmed Imam,
Both options are possible and can be used interchangeably.
In terms of the grammar, the difference is in the choice of an active voice infinitive (to put) or a passive voice infinitive (to be put). We can rephrase the sentences as follows:
The ladder is too long (for me/someone) to put on the car.
The ladder is too long to be put (by me/someone) on the car.
This page deals with count nouns rather than active and passive voice. Please try to post questions on relevant pages as it helps to keep the site organised. Your questions and our answers may be helpful to other users learning about the topic and they will find the information more easily if it is on a relevant page.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
In this example both words are possible.
In general, 'each' refers to the individuals separately, while 'both' refers to them as a pair. In some situations this is important. For example:
There were two boys. I gave each £10 to each. [£10 for one and £10 for the other]
There were two boys. I gave £10 to both. [this could mean £10 for one and £10 for the other, or it could mean £10 for them to share]
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
My answer was in the first reply: In this example both words are possible.
In modern English many people use a plural verb after 'each'. In fact, I would say that it is far more common now to use a plural verb than it is to use a singular verb. It is an example of how the language changes over time.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello again Ahmed Imam,
Yes, both are possible here – please see my comment just below for an explanation of the difference between 'each' and 'every'.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Ahmed Imam,
It's possible to use either 'each' or 'every' in this sentence. There is a slight different of emphasis between them, though essentially the mean the same thing. If you say 'each', you put more emphasis on each individual film – it's as if you were imagining Tom enjoying one film at a time. If you say 'every', there is no emphasis on each individual film – you imagine them more as a group than with 'each'.
Sometimes people use both and say 'each and every one of them'. This is just another way emphasising that he liked each film.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi ihsan_qwerty,
All of those sentences are correct. The first sentences in each pair are about one person or one team and the second sentences are about more than one.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dipakrgandhi,
There is no word 'inning'. The singular form and the plural form are the same: innings.
For example, you can say 'Cook's last innings was magnificent' or 'Kohli has played many fine innings for his country'.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dipakrgandhi,
I'm not familar with the use of the term in US English, I'm afraid. In British English 'innings' is used for the singular and plural forms. I can ask my colleague Kirk, who is from the US, to comment on this.
The rules for punctuation of direct speech and quotations are summarised here.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Dipak,
In the context of baseball, the word 'inning' is singular and 'innings' is plural. There are usually nine innings in a professional baseball game (or six or seven in non-professional games), so people often use an ordinal number to speak of which inning it is, e.g. 'the second inning', etc. Within each inning, each team 'goes to bat', i.e. has the chance to hit the ball and score runs.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Lal,
'bilingual' typically means two languages. What the relationship the speaker has with the two languages varies quite a bit, but in general I expect there are more bilinguals who feel stronger in one language than the other. The word 'bilingual' doesn't make any differentiation between these kind of people and what we could call perhaps 'true bilinguals', i.e. people for whom both languages are equally strong.
Sometimes people use 'bilingual' to mean 'multilingual' (a speak of more than one language), but in theory a bilingual speaks only two languages fluently.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Ahmed Imam,
I would say either 'half a chicken' or 'a half chicken', probably the first more than the second.
Now I'm hungry!
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hi Daisy9,
No, your question is not wrong. You make a good point and I will make a note to improve the wording of that explanation. The difference here is that in your question, a specific set of old books is being talked about, whereas in the question that is used as an example on this page, the books are not a specific group the speaker has in mind.
I can see how the explanation doesn't make this distinction, though, so we are grateful for your feedback.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello dipakrgandhi,
'rain' is uncountable, but the word is also used in the plural to refer to the rainy season in the tropics. This is why it's used that way here.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Vitub,
The sentence is grammatically correct. The reason a singular verb is used is that the subject is not 'things' but rather the whole noun phrase 'the way we talk about things'. The key part here is 'way', which is singular. If we changed it to 'the ways we talk about things' then a plural verb would be needed.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello amirfd,
Both sentences are possible.
The second sentence (not any apples) would be used if you are talking about whole apples, as they are countable.
The first sentence (no apple) would be used if you are talking about pieces of apple, as this would be uncountable.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello SonuKumar,
Normally, 'a lot' is used instead of 'much' in positive statements: 'This is a lot of information'. I don't understand what exactly you mean by 'This information is very much' -- perhaps 'This information is very useful'?
You can say 'a bit of water' or 'a little water' or 'a little bit of water' -- they all mean the same thing.
All the best,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team