Module 3 of 10
Plurals you can see and plurals you can hear
The -s is usually silent, so the article does the work.
French plurals are mostly a spelling event. Livre and livres sound the same; so do table and tables, étudiant and étudiants. What tells a listener you meant more than one is the word in front — le against les, un against des — which is why the article matters more in speech than the ending does. When you are listening, the plural is in the article; when you are writing, it is in both, and leaving the -s off is a visible error.
There are two places you do hear it. Words ending in -al go to -aux, which is audible and irregular enough to learn one by one: journal/journaux, animal/animaux, hôpital/hôpitaux. And when the next word starts with a vowel, the silent -s wakes up as a z and attaches to it: les amis sounds like lay-zamis, les enfants like lay-zonfon. That link is not optional decoration — leaving it out is one of the things that makes careful beginner French hard for a native speaker to follow.
Played by your device’s own French voice. It is a synthetic voice, not a recording of a teacher — close enough to learn the shape of a word, not close enough to copy exactly.
- Un livre, deux livresOne book, two books — the -s is silent
- Le livre, les livresThe book, the books — only the article tells you
- Un animal, des animauxAn animal, some animals — -al becomes -aux
- Un journal, des journauxA newspaper, some newspapers
- Un bus, des busA bus, some buses — words already ending in -s do not change
- Mes affairesMy things, my stuff
- Les enfantsThe children — here the -s is heard, carried onto the next word
- Les amisThe friends — the z sound between les and amis is the plural
In speech the article carries the plural, not the ending. Before a vowel the silent -s comes back as a z and joins the next word.