-s

Regular Plural with S

Level 1

Plural -s is common, but the word’s ending can require another spelling pattern.

How It Works

Many nouns and adjectives add s directly: llibre/llibres, gran/grans and noi/nois. Change accompanying articles and adjectives too: el llibre nou becomes els llibres nous. The plural noun alone does not complete the agreement.

An unstressed final -a normally changes to -es, as in casa/cases. Some masculine sibilant endings take -os, as in braç/braços. A word such as llapis can keep the same visible form in singular and plural, with the article showing the difference.

Written accents may change when a plural changes the stress-rule environment, even though the stressed syllable stays the same: examen/exàmens. Learn the spelling of each pattern instead of assuming that adding s can never affect the rest of a word.

Examples (3)

  1. Els llibres són grans.

    The books are large.

  2. Veig dos nois al parc.

    I see two boys in the park.

  3. Necessitem tres llapis.

    We need three pencils.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

-sLevel 1Regular Plural with S

Learn This First

Recognize singular versus plural article agreement.

Learn Next

Patterns that build on this one.

Words in This Pattern

-s