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Nouns & Articles

English nouns, definite and indefinite articles, countable and uncountable nouns, and plural forms
a — indefinite article
a book, a car, a house — used before consonant sounds
ay
an — before vowel sounds
an apple, an egg, an hour — used before vowel sounds (not letters)
an
the — definite article
the book, the car — refers to a specific known item
thuh / thee
Nouns are not capitalized
table, book, dog — unlike German, English nouns are lowercase
Plural: add -s
book→books, car→cars, table→tables
Plural: add -es
bus→buses, box→boxes, church→churches, dish→dishes
Irregular plurals
man→men, child→children, tooth→teeth, foot→feet, mouse→mice
No gender for nouns
Unlike Spanish/French/German, English nouns have no grammatical gender
Uncountable nouns — no plural
water, rice, information, advice — cannot say "waters" or "informations"
General plural — no article
I like dogs (general) vs. I like the dogs in that park (specific)