The plural form of nouns in Spanish is relatively easy to learn. There are really only three rules to follow.
1. Nouns ending in a vowel; add s:
hand - hand hands - hands lady - lady ladies - ladies
2. Nouns ending in a consonant; add es:
Lesson - lesson lessons - lessons teacher - professor professors - professors
3. Nouns ending in z; change z to c and add es:
light - light lights - lights nose - nose noses - noses
Notice that under rule 2 above, the example also showed a change in written (and spoken) accentuation:
Becomes lesson lessons
That is because adding es actually adds another syllable to the word and so a different accent rule applies. You may want to review the .
In a nutshell, when words ending in n, s, or a vowel have a spoken stress, the accent mark is used. The word lecciones keeps its spoken stress on the -on syllable, but in the plural form of the word, with -es added, -on is no longer the final syllable and the word conforms to the unmarked configuration.
Okay, that was la parte más fácil. Now you have to know how to add “the” definite article. You see, in Spanish the article, noun and adjective must agree in number and gender. Think of it as a homogeneous noun phrase.
For example, if “the lady” is la señora, then “the ladies” is:
the women
That is, la becomes las, for the feminine gender. The masculine el becomes los in the plural form:
strong man - the strong man
becomes,
strong men - the strong men
Do you see that the article, the noun, and the adjective all become plural?
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