martes, 24 de abril de 2012

Regular and Irregular Plural Nouns

Most nouns in English have both singular and plural forms, and the
plural is usually formed by adding "-s" to the singular. Most nouns in
English have both singular and plural forms, and the plural is usually
formed by adding “-s” to the singular. This page explains the basic
ways of forming regular plurals in English. For information about
forming irregular plurals see IrrEgular Plurals of Nouns.

How to form the plural
Noun ending Forming the plural Example
s, x, ch or sh Add -es boss bosses
tax taxes
bush bushes
consonant + y Change y to i then add -es baby babies
candy candies
curry curries
most others Add -s cat cats
face faces
day days

Try this:

 
 
Although most nouns have plurals formed according to regular rules (see Regular Plurals of Nouns), some nouns have unusual, or irregular plurals. This page will introduce the most common ones, so that you can learn them.

Types of irregular plural


There are many types of irregular plural, but these are the most common:

<>Noun type Forming the plural Example
Ends with -fe Change f to v
then
Add -s
knife knives
life lives
wife wives
Ends with -f Change f to v
then
Add -es
half halves
wolf wolves
loaf loaves
Ends with -o Add -es potato potatoes
tomato tomatoes
volcano volcanoes
ends with -us Change -us to -i cactus cacti
nucleus nuclei
focus foci
ends with -is Change -is to -es analysis analyses
crisis crises
thesis theses
ends with -on Change -on to -a phenomenon phenomena
criterion criteria
ALL KINDS Change the vowel
or
Change the word
or
Add a different ending
man men
foot feet
child children
person people
tooth teeth
mouse mice
Unchanging Singular and plural
are the same
sheep
deer
fish (sometimes)
Try This:
 


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martes, 17 de abril de 2012

Compound Sentences

Do you want to make your writing more interesting?


You can do this by combining 2
or more shorter sentences into
one longer, more interesting
sentence.
pencil

A
conjunction is a word you
can use to combine the
sentences.
Examples of conjunctions are:
and
, or, but,
so


Suppose you wrote these
sentences in your story...
Melanie forgot her lunch.
She called her mother.
You could combine these
sentences with a
conjunction.

Melanie forgot her lunch, so
she called her mother.

lunchbox

Another example might look
like this...
Pam bought 3 pencils. She
lost 2 of them.
You could combine these
sentences with a
conjunction.
Pam bought 3 pencils, but
she lost 2 of them.



Maybe you wrote... Bobby has a football. He
threw it across the yard.
You could combine these
sentences with a
conjunction.
Bobby has a football, and
he threw it across the
yard.


boy with football


Remember to always put a

comma
before the
conjunction
in every
compound sentence.
,



You can even combine 3 short sentences to make your
writing sound
smoother.

For example:

For lunch I ate a sandwich.
I ate potato chips. I ate
a cookie.
Or You could write... For lunch I ate a sandwich,
potato chips,
and a cookie.

Doesn't that sound better?

   Click on the flower to practice.

flower


jueves, 12 de abril de 2012

Common and Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are words that name a specific person, place, thing or idea. Proper nouns are capitalized so the reader can tell them apart from common nouns.


Common nouns do not name a specific person, place, thing or idea. Common nouns are not capitalized unless they are at the beginning of a sentence or part of a title.

http://www.mcwdn.org/grammar/nouncompropquiz/nouncompropquiz.html


http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/grammar/common_nouns/quiz342.html


http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/grammar/noun/quiz295.html