Making Words Plural In French For Beginners

Plurals are simply when we talk about something and there is more than one of them.

We need to follow some rules so we can correctly explain that we are talking about multiples of the item.

Plurals In English

Most of the time to make something plural in English, we just need to add an –S to the end of the word.

Cake becomes Cakes.

It’s usually just this simple, but there are a few other variations that are not as common, but still important.

For example some words we add –ES. Like how Box become Boxes.

Other words ending in Y often become drop the Y and add –IES. This is like how Baby become Babies

Then of course we also have the irregular words that just do their own thing, like how tooth becomes teeth.

For natives this may seem like it is really straight forward, but as you can see there is quite a few different rules to how to make something plural, the same is true in French.

Plurals In French

We will be looking at how to make nouns and then adjectives plural.

For verbs it is really easy, you just conjugate them for the correct pronoun. If you have learned the conjugation rules, you have already learned how to make verbs plural.

For example if you are talking about a group of people singing, you conjugate the verb to say “They are singing- ils chantent” and this is automatically in the plural form.

Matching Articles In French

The first thing to remember when making a noun plural is to make sure it has the right article. (Read my article about Articles)

In English we do not worry about this. We only have one ‘The’. We say “The cake and The cakes”.

In French you need to make sure you use the plural article, such as Les or Des to show you are talking about a plural object.

This is the first thing you can easily notice in a sentence and automatically know that whatever the context is, it will be involving a plural.     

Adding An –S To The End Of Words

Luckily, most of the words in French follow the same rule as in English. They are easily made plural by simply adding an –S at the end.

However, this –S is not pronounced. This means you need to listen carefully to hear the article before hand, which will let you know the word is a plural when spoken.

“The flower – la fleur” Becomes “The flowers – les fleurs”

If a word already ends in an –S, or ends in an -X or –Z then it just stays the same. Kind of like how ‘Sheep’ just stays ‘Sheep’ when it’s made plural in English. 

Again, you can tell these words have been made plural when written or spoken by the article that comes before it. 

“Le nez – the nose” Becomes “Les nez – the noses”

Adding an –X To The End Of Words

Some words do not follow the above rule and instead end with an –X when they are made plural. This is also not pronounced.

-eau

Nouns ending with -eau will simply have an -X added to the end.

-eu

Most of the nouns ending with –eu will have an X added to them. There are a few exceptions, but the majority work this way.

-ou

For the majority of nous ending in –ou they will simply need an –S added. However, there is a handful that you come across that do not act this way and actually need an –X

Such as

“Cabbage- Un Chou” Becomes  “Cabbages – Des Choux”

-al /-ail

Nouns ending with al or ail will have this removed and replaced with –aux. This actually will change how the word is pronounced.

Such as

“Un animal” Becomes “Des animaux”

What Are Plural Singular Words In French?

This is something you get both in French and English. It is when the words are muddled up; they look plural, but are singular.

In English we have words like “trousers” which looks plural, but is one item. In French this a single item, and the word reflects this “un pantalon”

In French the word for hair is “les cheveux” which is very much a plural looking word, along with a plural article, but this is fact the word for “hair” a singular word.

There are only a couple or words like this in each language, but you may come across some of them from time to time.

Adjectives And Plurals In French

As with everything in a French sentence, all the words must be in agreement with each other.

The nouns and verbs must agree with the articles and pronouns before them. The same is also true for the Adjectives.  

Adjectives are describing words, they things like colour size, shape, quantity or even emotion.

Adjectives work slightly different to nouns. There is a masculine and feminine singular version (like nouns) but there is also a masculine and feminine version for the plurals.

So basically there can be 4 ways to spell the same word!

If we look at the word Green, This can be spelt  

• Vert – Masculine singular  
• Verts – Masculine plural
• Verte – feminine singular
• Vertes –  feminine plural

As you can see the main way to make an adjective plural is to add an –S on the end. You just need to know if the word before it is masculine or feminine so the word you add can agree.

This can be hard when you have to write, but it can actually be very helpful when you are reading.

If you see “The cars – les voitures” you might not know if -Voitures- is a masculine or feminine word.

However, if you see “les voiture vertes” you can work out it is a female word based on how the adjective is spelt.

As voiture is a female word it requires the vertes spelling.

So long as everything is in agreement you cannot go wrong. If you have a sentence that is talking about both a masculine and also a feminine thing, you would use the masculine plural adjective.

Much in the same way you would pick the masculine plural pronoun (ils, not elles) with verbs, if you where talking about a group of mixed gender people.

Some Slight Differences

If a masculine singular adjective already ends in an –S or an –X you do not need to add an extra -S to make it plural. It just stays the same.

“He is French – il est Français” Becomes “They are French – ils sont Français”

As you see Français does not change even though it now being used to describe a plural

If the masculine single form ends in -eau or –al, the plural will end with -eaux or -aux

These slight differences only affect the male words. When you read my article about adjectives, you will see that that all the female singular words end in -E, so you can easily just add –S to them to make them plural.

Conclusion

French plurals can seem complicated, but they are no more complicated than English.

It just takes a little practice and getting used to the few rules that you have to follow.

So long as you have made every word in your sentence in agreement with its gender or plural form, then you will be free of problems. 

(Read the next lesson – How to Use Negation In French)