The noun

the widest sense of the word

Nouns

Proper Common
(London, John, Monday, May)


Class Nouns of Collective Abstract
(dog, table) material (family) (idea)
(snow, iron)

Genders of nouns


Masculine

Feminine Neutral
he she it
(men, boys, (women, girls, (things, babies,
animals when animals when animals when
we know their we know their we don’t know
sex) sex, countries, their sex)
ships, vehicles
when regarded with affection)

same form whether they are male or female (teacher, student).

Some nouns have different forms:
actor – actress groom – bride
waiter – waitress host – hostess
widower – widow steward – stewardess
prince – princess hero – heroine
duke – duchess king – queen
monk – nun heir - heiress

-sion,
-hood, -dom, -ship, -ment, -ance, -ence, -ty, -ity, -ure,
-age,

-y, -ee, -ian, -al, -sis, -cy

The most common prefixes:
re-, co-, dis-, mis-, over-, under-, sub-, inter-

Compound nouns:
one word (classroom), two words (CD player), hyphen (game-tester)

Nouns

Countable

Uncountable
denote things that denote things we
can be counted can’t count

can take singular and always take singular
plural verbs; verbs;
go with –a,-an,-my/his/ don’t go with –a,-an,
her/your/its/our/their, one/two…, these/
-this/these/that/those those

coffee, etc.
when we order smth. in a restaurant, etc.

English but countable in Russian:
advice (совет), news

(новости), money (деньги), information (сведения), progress (успех), travel (путешествие), trouble (проблема), hair (волосы), success (успех), toast (гренки), applause (аплодисменты), knowledge (знания), evidence (признак, свидетельство),spaghetti (спагетти), failure (неудача), fruit (фрукты), etc.

as countable or uncountable with a difference in meaning:

a glass(стакан), glasses(очки), a paper(газета), papers(документы), a hair(волосина),
an iron(утюг), a wood(лес), times(разы), experiences(события), works(произведения), a chicken ( the animal), a toast (тост), a help (помощник), a gossip (сплетник), cheeses/fruits and other words denoting different sorts of a given material or food, etc.

made countable by adding a partitive:
a piece

of, a bottle of, a sheet of, a box of, a slice of, a loaf of, a bit of, a kilo of, a tube of, a plate of, etc.
Always look it up in the dictionary!

nouns ending in –s, -ss, -x, -ch, -sh, -z
-ies to

nouns ending in consonant + y
-es to nouns ending in consonant + o ( But –s if they are abbreviations (photos, kilos, autos, etc.), musical instruments (pianos), proper nouns (Eskimos). Some nouns ending in –o can take either –s or –es ( buffalo, mosquito, volcano, tornado, zero, etc.)
-ves to some nouns ending in –f/-fe (calves, halves, knives, leaves, selves, thieves, wolves, wives, etc.) But: beliefs, chiefs, cliffs, handkerchiefs, scarfs/scarves, hoofs/hooves (копыто), roofs, safes)
Greek or Latin suffixes ( basis- bases, crisis- crises, terminus- termini (конечная станция), criterion- criteria, phenomenon- phenomena, stimulus- stimuli, datum- data (данные, база), medium- media (средство) , formula- formulae, index- indices, antenna- antennae, etc.)

the second noun. But to the first noun if it

is followed by a preposition ( mothers-in-law, passers-by). At the end of the compound if it doesn’t include any nouns (letdowns).
Irregular plurals: man- men (but: Walkmans), woman- women, foot- feet, tooth- teeth, mouse- mice, louse- lice, child- children, goose- geese, sheep- sheep, deer- deer, fish- fish, trout- trout (форель), cod- cod (треска), salmon- salmon (лосось), ox- oxen, spacecraft- spacecraft, aircraft- aircraft, hovercraft- hovercraft, means- means, species- species, swine- swine, dozen- dozen ( but: in dozens), score- score – счет, задолженность (but: scores of people - множество), series – series, rendezvous- rendezvous.

nouns which refer to school subjects (maths, politics), sports (athletics),

games (billiards, dominoes, darts, draughts [drɑːfts] (шашки)), illnesses (measles (корь), mumps (свинка)); when we talk about an amount of money, a time period, weight, distance, etc. ( Five thousand pounds was donated to build a new hospital wing. Two weeks isn’t long to wait. Ten miles is a long way to ride.); with group nouns when we mean the group as a unit ( jury, family, team, group, crew (команда, экипаж), crowd, class, audience, committee, council (совет), army, club, press, government, company, staff (штат), etc.)

nouns which refer to objects that consist of two parts

( trousers, binoculars, shorts, pyjamas, tights, glasses, earrings, scissors['sɪzəz] (ножницы), compasses (циркуль), scales (весы), tongs (щипцы, клещи), jeans, spectacles, etc.); nouns such as: clothes, police, stairs, looks, surroundings (окрестности, окружение), outskirts (окраина), premises (недвижимость), earnings (заработок, прибыль), wages, cattle (скот), poultry (птица), congratulations, thanks, riches, goods (товары), contents (содержание), oats (овес), potatoes, carrots, onions ( but: a potato/a carrot/ an onion); group nouns when we mean the individuals.
These nouns are plural in Russian but both singular and plural in English: watch- watches, clock- clocks, gate- gates, sledge- sledges, vacation- vacations
( Our summer vacation lasts 2 months. We have 2 vacations a year.)

with the genitive form of a noun. This means we

normally use ‘s (апостроф + s) or ’ (апостроф без s) for people and some living creatures. ( Frank’s car; a boy’s cat; Doris’s address, an actress’s career, children’s games, my father-in-law’s house, the girls’ uniforms).
We use ‘s and ‘ with some non-living things: time phrases ( a day’s work, two hours’ journey), the names of countries/ cities/ships ( Moscow’s theaters), nouns expressing space/ weight/organization ( the river’s edge, the company’s success), with the nouns world/ country/city/ship (world’s best museums) .
The genitive is used in some set expressions and fixed phrases: for Heaven’s sake (ради Бога), for God’s sake, at one’s wit’s end (стать в тупик), to a hair’s breadth (точь-в-точь), by a hair’s breadth (на волоске от), at a stone’s through, the earth’s surface, journey’s end, etc.