Немно́го о языке́ 1.8 Оде́жда

Plurals of masculine and feminine nouns

As you can see in the examples below, the most common way to make hard-stem masculine and feminine nouns plural is to use the ending -ы. Notice that you drop the -а at the end of ла́мпа before adding the -ы ending.

	Э́то компью́тер.	Э́то компью́теры.
	Э́то студе́нт.	Э́то студе́нты.
	Э́то ла́мпа.	Э́то ла́мпы.

For soft-stem masculine and feminine nouns, the ending is -и.

	Э́то слова́рь.	Э́то словари́.
	Э́то крова́ть	Э́то крова́ти.
	Э́то ту́фля.	Э́то ту́фли.

For words like слова́рь and крова́ть that end in a soft sign, you must drop the soft sign before you add the ending -и. You must also drop the -я in ту́фля before adding the ending, just as you dropped the -а in ла́мпа above.

There are also some words that do not “play by the rules" of this hard/soft distinction for forming nominative plurals. Look at the examples below:

	Э́то блу́зка.	Э́то блу́зки.
	Э́то каранда́ш.	Э́то карандаши́.

Since блу́зка ends in -a and каранда́ш ends in a consonant, you would expect both to take the hard ending -ы. As it turns out, there is a spelling rule at play here. So, how does this spelling rule work?

Below are the patterns for most masculine and feminine nouns. Of course, just as English has unexpected or irregular forms (like child --> children, mouse --> mice, goose --> geese), some Russian nouns will have unexpected plurals that you will need to learn separately. And just as in English, some Russian nouns are only in the plural form, including things like брю́ки (pants) джи́нсы (jeans) and очки́ (glasses).

Masculine Nouns

	Dictionary form stem	Dict. form ending	Explanation	Plural Form
hard stem	чемода́н студе́нт костю́м	ø	add the ending -ы	чемода́ны студе́нты костю́мы
soft stem	слова́рь музе́й	ø	drop the -ь or the й, but since the stem is soft you need to add -и instead of -ы	словари́ музе́и
spelling rule	уче́бник плащ	ø	When the noun’s stem ends in г, к, х, ж, ш, ч or щ, add -и instead of -ы.	уче́бники плащи́

Feminine Nouns

	Dictionary form stem	Dict. form ending	Explanation	Plural Form
hard stem	ламп катастро́ф	a	drop the -а, and add the ending -ы	ла́мпы катастро́фы
soft stem	крова́ть	ø	drop the -ь, but since the stem is soft you need to add -и instead of -ы	крова́ти
	ту́фл	я	drop the -я, but since the stem is soft you need to add -и instead of -ы	ту́фли
spelling rule	ю́бк кни́г	а	When the noun’s stem ends in г, к, х, ж, ш, ч or щ, add -и instead of -ы.	ю́бки кни́ги

Упражне́ние 1

Listen to the nouns and decide whether they are singular or plural. Then decide whether the item(s) would most likely fit in a suitcase (Да) or not (Наве́рно нет).