Plurals in French

Forming the plural of nouns in French is incredibly easy. Again, do not confuse spelling, a human invention, with language, something that is natural. Almost every noun in French sounds exactly the same in the singular and plural. It is only when we write these nouns that we see a difference. Almost all nouns add -s in the spelling.

Examples (with -s)

homme                    hommes
femme                     femmes
différence                différences
chien                       chiens

All the words above are pronounced in exactly the same way since the -s that indicates the plural is silent.


Nouns that end in -eau and -eu are also pronounced the same in both the singular and plural but instead of adding -s to indicate the plural we use -x. Why? Who knows. Just accept it. You might find a reason if you go look at the history of the language but since that would really not help you in any way with plurals, it would be for academic interest only.


Examples (with -x)

château                    châteaux
cheveu                     cheveux

Remember: the -x is silent, hence there is no difference in pronunciation between the singular and the plural.

Plurals That Are Different

There are a few nouns in French that do have a plural that is different from the singular. All these words, except for two, end in -al. In the plural, we change -al to -aux. That is all.

Examples (with -aux)

cheval                    chevaux
métal                      métaux


Two Very Different Nouns

l'oeil                    les yeux
os                       os

What is different about the word "os" is that we pronounce the 's' in the singular but not in the plural. There is a logical reason for this: if we were to pronounce only the 'o' then it would sometimes be unclear if one were trying to say "os" (bone) or "eau" (water). In the plural, "os" behaves the same way as thousands of French nouns.

Now you know how to form the plural of every noun in French.