Nouns and their plural in French

Salut, and welcome to our lesson about Plural in French at Language Easy! Plural is indeed a universal concept which is present in all languages. Basically, we just need to explain how it is formed and a few of its specificities. Good news ! Once you learn the rules, there aren’t too many exceptions, so it’ll certainly be easy to get going in conversation.

Allez, on y va !

It is important to realize that unlike the gender of a noun which is an intrinsic characteristic, the singular and plural forms are pure grammatical variations of the same word. A noun IS masculine or feminine, but it HAS a singular and a plural form.

Let’s start with a few examples, as usual :

• un gorille
  a gorilla (singular)
• deux ou trois gorilles
  two or three gorillas (plural)

As we saw in our previous lesson about gender, a noun is generally introduced by an article which must vary in gender according to it. In addition, the article must also take its singular or plural for according to the “number” of the noun : les (definite article) or des (indefinite article) :

• un gorille→ des gorilles
  a gorilla → gorillas
  
• la girafe → les girafes
  the giraffe → the giraffes
  

In fact, the plural form of the articles are the same for the masculine and feminine cases, which explains why we always present nouns in their singular form when we introduce them (if we didn’t, it would mean that the gender information would be lost).

To go further, see our complete lesson about articles.

As far as nouns are concerned, the rules for the formation of the plural in French are few and simple.

Rules for forming the plural :

• nouns ending by “eu“, “au” or “eau” : add a final “x“
• nouns ending in “al” : change it to “aux“
• nouns already ends by an “s“, a “z” or an “x“: don´t change anything
• any other noun : add a final “s”

Firstly, let’s set a few examples for the last default case :

• le voyage → les voyages
  trips
• la chienne → les chiennes
  female dogs

Nouns ending in eu / au / eau :

• le feu → les feux
  the fires
• un étau → des étaux
  vises
• un anneau → des anneaux
  rings

Nouns ending in al :

• un cheval → des chevaux
  horses
• un animal → des animaux
  animals

Nouns already ending in s, z or x :

• une souris → des souris
  mice
• un quartz → des quartz
  quartz
• un lépreux → des lépreux
  leppered people

It’s pretty much all you should know about how to form the plural in French. However, there are exceptions, and I’m afraid you’ll have to learn a few lists of words with an irregular plural ; I learnt those lists by heart when I was 13 🙂

Exceptions in eu :

• un bleu → des bleus
  blues, rookies or bruises
• un pneu → des pneus
  tyres

Exceptions in au :

• un landau → des landaus
  baby cars

Exceptions in ou :

• un hibou → des hiboux
  owls
• le genou → les genoux
  the knees
• un chou → des choux
  cabbages
• le caillou → les cailloux
  the pebbles
• un pou → des poux
  lice
• le joujou → les joujoux
  the toys
• un bijou → des bijoux
  jewels

Exceptions in al :

• un cal → des cals
  calluses
• le carnaval → les carnavals
  carnivals
• un pal → des pals
  stakes
• le récital → les récitals
  recitals
• un festival → des festivals
  festivals
• le chacal → les chacals
  jackals

Exceptions in ail :

• un bail → des baux
  leases
• le corail → les coraux
  corals
• un émail → des émaux
  enamels
• le travail → les travaux
  works
• un vitrail → des vitraux
  stained glass windows

Compound nouns (les noms composés) are composed by more than one word (generally two) ; they usually are connected together by a hyphen “-“. They can be a combination of nouns, adjectives, verbs, past or present participles, adverbs, prepositions, determiners. Their plural in French is not always obvious, but we can state an easy rule to understand how it goes :

In a compound noun, only the composing nouns, adjective and past participles are put to plural, unless the meaning commands otherwise.

Firstly let’s give a few examples of the normal case :

• un coffre-fort→ des coffres–forts
  strongboxes (lit. vault-strong), noun+adjective
• un sourd-muet→ des sourds–muets
  deaf and blind people (lit. deaf-blind), noun+noun
• un ouvre-boîte→ des ouvre–boîtes
  can openers (lit. open-box), verb+noun
• une contre-attaque→ des contre–attaques
  counter-strikes (lit. counter-attacks), preposition+noun
• le savoir-vivre→ les savoir–vivre
  good manners (lit. know-to-live), verb+verb
• un passe-partout→ des passe–partout
  masterkeys (lit. pass-everywhere), verb+adverb
• un non-voyant→ des non–voyant
  blind person (lit. not-seeing), adverb+verb

Here are examples where the meaning commands the use of plural :

• Un laissé-pour-compte → des laissés-pour-compte
  people who are left behind (lit. left-for-account), participle+preposition+noun
  Several persons are left behind but there is only one account for all of them.
• Un coupe-papier → des coupe-papier
  paper cutters (lit. cut-paper), verb+noun
  The noun paper is used in as indefinite, we’re speaking about cutting paper (du papier, and not a paper (un papier.
• Une assurance-vie → des assurances-vie
  life insurances (lit. insurance-life), noun+noun
  Each contract hedges only for one life.
• Un timbre-poste → des timbres-poste
  stamps (lit. stamp-post), noun+noun
  The stamps are made for the post-office.
• Une nouvelle éclair → des nouvelles éclair
  news flash (lit. news-lightning-bolt), noun+noun
  The news came at the speed of a lightning-bolt.

Note that sometimes, also driven by the meaning, one of the composing nouns can be plural while the compound noun is at the singular form :

• un garde-meubles → des garde-meubles
  storage (lit. keep-furniture), verb+noun
  A storage is meant to keep various pieces of furniture at once. In this case, it’s also correct to write it all singular : un garde-meuble.

Sometimes, you might have to be careful, because some words have the same form as a noun and as a verb.

• Un garde-malade → des gardes-malades
  live-in nurses (lit. guard-patient), noun+noun, a guard
• Un garde-manger → des garde-manger
  pantries (lit. guard-food), verb+verb, to guard

Quite oddly, Grand (grand) and franc (free, old french) are always masculine in compound nouns.

• Un grand-père → des grands-pères
  grand-fathers
• but : Une grand-mère → des grand-mères or des grands-mères
  grand-mothers

• Un franc-maçon → des francs-maçons
  freemasons (m)
• but : une franc-maçonne → des franc-maçonnes or des francs-maçonnes
  freemasons (f)

Indeed, when we refer to only one, two or more entities, the choice is obvious. But what about null, decimal and fractional quantities ?

For a fractional quantity, the rule applies : the choice depends if the fraction is bigger than 2 or not.

• 3/4 litre
• 1,9 litre
• 2,1 litres
• 25/10 litres

For a negative quantity, the choice is made according to the value without the negative sign.

• -1,8 degré Celsius
• -3 degrés Celsius

With a null quantity, the right choice is singular.

• 0 litre d’eau.
• Je compte zéro mouton.
• Il n’y a aucun passager.

Exceptionally, if the sentence is constructed with the words sans (without) or pas de (no), the use of plural or singular depends of the logical meaning of the sentence :

• Elle n’a pas d’enfant(s)
  = She doesn’t have any children.
  If she had children, she could have one, or more, hence both singular and plural are correct.

• Il n’y a pas d’étoiles dans le ciel ce soir.
  = There are no stars in the sky tonight.
  If there were stars, there would undoubtedly be more than one, so singular is wrong.

• Une nuit sans lune.
  = A moonless night.
  If the moon was there, she would obviously be the only one, hence plural is not accepted.
  

Finally, another two exceptions are worth stating. Firstly, the idiomatic expression “plus d’un” (more than one) is always followed by a singular.

• Plus d’un homme a déjà voyagé aux États-Unis. (more than one man has already traveled to the States)

On the contrary, the expressions  “un ou deux” (one or two) or “moins de deux” (less than two) are always followed by a plural:

• Moins de deux jours ont suffi.
  = less than two days were enough.
• Une ou deux heures suffiront.
  = one or two hours will be enough.

In French, as in English and other main languages, there only exist the singular (for one) and the plural (for two or more). But did you know that in other languages, the system is a bit more complex ?

Opposed to singular and plural, these grammatical forms can exist :

• duel (for exactly 2), that existed in a lot of ancient languages like Greek, Sanskrit or ancient Arab for example, but also current
• triel (for exactly 3)
• paucal (for small indefinite quantities)
• double paucal (for abnormally small quantities)
• double-plural (for abnormally large quantities)

Also, in certain languages, instead of being naturally singular and having a modified plural form, some words refer naturally to multiple objects and have a altered singular form that refer to a single object.

Interestingly, one of the languages that has the most complex system for plural is the sursurunga, a language spoken by about 3000 people in New Ireland.

Et voilà, we reached the end of our lesson about the plural in French. You now know how to for the plural of nouns, but we´ll need one or two other lessons to learn how to deal with the plural when it comes to the conjugation of the verbs. If you want to stay into the thematic before the next lesson, check out now our lesson about verb agreement !

Allez, à bientôt !