🍎 Plural of nouns: the main rule and all the exceptions you need to know

Forming plurals in French seems easy: just add an s and you’re done. That is, until your child comes across words like chevaux, jeux or cailloux, and suddenly the simple rule turns into a list of endless exceptions.

Don’t worry: these exceptions fall into a few clear groups, which children learn gradually from CE1 to CM1. Here you’ll find the main rule, each group of endings with their exact exceptions, a summary table, and practical ideas to help your child remember them at home—without spending all evening on it.

The main rule: add an s

For most nouns, the plural is formed by adding an s to the singular: un chat, des chats; une fleur, des fleurs; un ami, des amis; une maison, des maisons.

The tricky part is that this s isn’t pronounced. When you say « un chat » and « des chats », the only difference is the little word before the noun. So your child needs to pay attention to that word: les, des, mes, ces, deux, plusieurs… Our article on determiners explains each one. Some invariable words also signal a plural: you write « beaucoup de livres », « trop de bonbons ». For these little words that never change, see our list of invariable words for CE2.

Nouns ending in -s, -x or -z don’t change

If a noun already ends in s, x or z, you leave it as it is: une souris, des souris; un bras, des bras; un prix, des prix; une noix, des noix; un nez, des nez. Only the determiner shows that it’s plural.

Nouns ending in -eau, -au and -eu take an x

The second group, which comes up often: nouns ending in -eau, -au or -eu take an x in the plural.

• -eau: un bateau, des bateaux; un gâteau, des gâteaux; un oiseau, des oiseaux; un manteau, des manteaux. No exceptions to remember.
• -au: un tuyau, des tuyaux; un noyau, des noyaux. Rare exceptions: un landau, des landaus; un sarrau, des sarraus.
• -eu: un jeu, des jeux; un cheveu, des cheveux; un feu, des feux; un neveu, des neveux. Exceptions: un pneu, des pneus; un bleu, des bleus; un émeu, des émeus.

In CE2, just remembering pneus and bleus is enough—these are the two exceptions your child is most likely to see in texts.

Nouns ending in -ou: an s, except for seven exceptions

Nouns ending in -ou usually follow the main rule and take an s: un clou, des clous; un trou, des trous; un sou, des sous; un cou, des cous; un bisou, des bisous; un kangourou, des kangourous.

Seven nouns—just seven, as learned at school—take an x:

• un bijou, des bijoux;
• un caillou, des cailloux;
• un chou, des choux;
• un genou, des genoux;
• un hibou, des hiboux;
• un joujou, des joujoux;
• un pou, des poux.

To help your child remember them all, nothing beats a silly sentence with all seven already in the plural: « Sur mes genoux, des hiboux pleins de poux mangent des choux au milieu de mes bijoux, de mes joujoux et de mes cailloux. » Seven words, seven x.

Nouns ending in -al and -ail

-al usually becomes -aux

Nouns ending in -al generally form their plural with -aux: un cheval, des chevaux; un journal, des journaux; un animal, des animaux; un hôpital, des hôpitaux; un canal, des canaux.

A few common nouns are exceptions and simply take an s: des bals, des carnavals, des chacals, des festivals, des récitals, des régals.

-ail usually takes an s

It’s the opposite for -ail: most take an s. Un rail, des rails; un détail, des détails; un portail, des portails; un éventail, des éventails; un épouvantail, des épouvantails.

Seven nouns have their plural in -aux: un bail, des baux; un corail, des coraux; un émail, des émaux; un soupirail, des soupiraux; un travail, des travaux; un vantail, des vantaux; un vitrail, des vitraux. In CE2, travaux, vitraux and coraux are the ones your child will see most often.

Truly irregular plurals

Some nouns change completely in the plural. There’s no rule to learn here: you just have to memorise them.

• an eye, eyes
• monsieur, messieurs; madame, mesdames; mademoiselle, mesdemoiselles.

Others keep the same spelling but change pronunciation. For example, un œuf is pronounced with the f, but des œufs is not; the same goes for un bœuf and des bœufs. In writing, you simply add an s.

Finally, family names generally stay singular: you write « les Martin sont arrivés », with no s on Martin.

Helping your child remember plural nouns at home

The first pitfall isn’t an exception: it’s adding an s where it doesn’t belong. « Ils portent des portes »: the first word is a verb, which takes -nt, the second is a noun, which takes s. If your child still mixes them up, go over word types with them: only nouns (and the adjectives that go with them) take a plural s.

Next, a few regular minutes are better than one long session:

1. The “one, some” game. You say “a horse”, your child answers “horses” and writes it on a whiteboard. Mix regular words and exceptions, five minutes max.
2. The two boxes. Two shoeboxes, one labelled s, the other x. Your child sorts plural word cards into them. Mistakes are easy to spot.
3. Group word dictation. Instead of whole sentences, dictate “shiny jewels”, “the morning newspapers”, “several flat tyres”. Our CE2 printable dictations offer ready-to-use texts to check progress.

To reinforce the concept alongside other topics, our CE2 printable exercises offer quick practice you can do together at the kitchen table.