Language/French/Grammar/Plurals

French Grammar - Plurals

Hi French learners! 😊
In this lesson, we will learn about French plural forms in both nouns and adjectives. Knowing plural forms is fundamental to communicate effectively in French, especially when you want to talk about more than one object or person.
Let's get started!

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Possessive determiners, Omission of the article, « d'autres » VS « des autres » & Proper Nouns.

Plural Nouns

In French, a word can be either masculine or feminine. As a general rule, to form the plural of a noun, you add an -s at the end of masculine nouns and -es to the end of feminine nouns. However, there are some exceptions that we will see later.

An easy way to remember the plural form is to think of the English language, which often adds an -s at the end of nouns to create the plural form.

Here are some examples:

French	Pronunciation	English
une voiture	yn vwa-tʏʁ	a car
deux voitures	dø vwa-tʏʁ	two cars
une pomme	yn pɔm	an apple
deux pommes	dø pɔm	two apples

Exceptions exist, and they mostly come from nouns ending in -s, -x, -z, -eu, or -au. These endings require no additional letters to form a plural form.

Here are some examples:

French	Pronunciation	English
un tennis	œ̃ tenis	a tennis court
deux tennis	dø tenis	two tennis courts
un paix	œ̃ pe	a peace
deux paix	dø pe	two peaces

There is a series of masculine French nouns ending in -s, -x, -z, -au or -eu that have the same singular and plural forms. For example:

French	Pronunciation	English
un chat	yn ʃa	a cat
deux chats	dø ʃa	two cats
un neveu	œ̃ nɛvø	a nephew
deux neveux	dø nɛvø	two nephews

Now that you have a good grasp of forming plural nouns, let's move on to adjectives.

Plural Adjectives

French adjectives change form to agree in gender and number with the noun they describe.

To form the plural of an adjective we add -s to most adjectives. However, there are some exceptions.

If the adjective ends in -s, -x, or -z, there is no need to add an extra -s to make it plural.

If it ends in -al, we replace -al with -aux to make it plural.

Here are some examples:

Singular Masculine	Plural Masculine	Singular Feminine	Plural Feminine
grand	grands	grande	grandes	belle	belles	beau	beaux	génial	géniaux	géniale	géniales	sportif	sportifs	sportive	sportives	musical	musicaux	musicale	musicales

As we saw, some adjectives have a different form for masculine and feminine, and some others have the same form. However, they all follow the same rule to become plural.

Practice

A good way to practice your plural forms is to engage with native speakers. Find native speakers and ask them any questions!

Here is a dialogue to practice how to use plural forms in French:

• Person 1: Nous avons besoin de deux billets pour le concert. (We need two tickets for the concert.)
• Person 2: Il y a encore des billets disponibles en ligne. (There are still tickets available online.)
• Person 1: Super, merci! (Great, thanks!)

Exceptions

Like in any language, exceptions exist. Some French nouns and adjectives have irregular plural forms that don't follow any pattern. Here are a few examples:

• Nouns:

   * un œuf (an egg) - des œufs (some eggs) 
   * un cheval (a horse) - des chevaux (some horses) 
   * un ciel (a sky) - des cieux (some skies) 

• Adjectives:

   * vieux (old) - vieilles (old, feminine)
   * nouveau (new) - nouveaux (new, masculine)
   * nouveau (new) - nouvelles (new, feminine)

Cultural notes

In French, it's considered impolite to use plural forms when addressing someone in a formal situation like a job interview, a meeting, or simply when you talk to someone you don't know. It's recommended to use the singular form instead. However, this rule has been changing recently, and some people use the plural form regardless of the scenario.

France is famous for its cheese. If you go to a cheese market, you will find a vast array of cheese types. It's tough to choose! French people like to eat cheese on wine or bread as a snack or dessert. When you visit France, try a different cheese type each day!

Conclusion

In this lesson, we learned how to form the plural form of nouns and adjectives. We saw that there are some exceptions to the rules, but they are manageable once you understand the patterns. To improve your French Grammar, you can also use the Polyglot Club website. Find native speakers and ask them any questions! 😊

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➡ If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below.
➡ Feel free to edit this wiki page if you think it can be improved. 😎

Sources

• Le pluriel: plural nouns in French grammar
• Plurals that end in -x | French Grammar with Frantastique
• French Compound Noun Plurals - Lawless French Grammar

With this lesson finished, you may want to explore these additional pages: French Accent Marks, "J'ai eu" or "j'avais", Restrictions on possible combinations & Plural forms of adjectives — The normal case.

Other Lessons

• Relations between verbs and their complements
• Use of faire + partitive faire du, de la
• Use of il, ce, cela and ça as impersonal pronouns
• Recognizing when an unstressed pronoun is a direct object
• Types of adverbs
• French Ditransitive verbs
• Omission of the article in compound nouns linked by à
• Reflexive use of me, te, se, nous, vous
• Adjectives modified by adverbs and prepositional phrases
• Directly transitive verbs