When you describe something, you need to give suffcient information to make detailed description, so the others can catch the things that you mean. Beside that, once you have some occasions, meeting, appointment with doctor, and etc, you have to know well the time and place. Talking about the time, it is absolutely inseparable with our dialy life. We have to know how to tell the time properly. In this chapter you will learn to describe somtehing and tell the time. Enjoy the lesson!
Learning Purposes :
- Describe characteristics of something
- Express the time of day, date and month
- Use cerdinal and ordinal numbers
- Understand plural forms.
1. Grammer Focus
Number can be divided into two:
Cerdinal Numbers and Ordinal Numbers. To make the best use of numbers, you should know the differences between both types of number.
- Cardinal Number
Everday, we can’t be sparated with the use of numbers in doing something. For example, when you are at the airport and waiting for boarding time, you have to listen carefully to any announcement in order to keep you in schedule. In situation like this, cardinal numbers are commonly used. If you don’t know these numbers, you may miss you flight. Therefore you should be able to recogonize cardinal numbers, to know their spelling as well as their pronuciation.
Look at the following cardinal numbers :
| 0 (zero)1 (one)2 (two)
3 (three) 4 (four) 5 (five) 6 (six) 7 (seven) 8 (eight) 9 (nine) 10 (ten) 11 (eleven) 12 (twelve) 13 (thirteen) 14 (fourteen) 15 (fifteen) |
16 (sixteen)17 (seventeen)18 (eighteen)
19 (nineteen) 20 (twenty) 30 (thirty) 40 (forty) 50 (fifty) 60 (sixty) 70 (seventy) 80 (eighty) 90 (ninety) 100 (one thundreth) 1000 (one thousand) 1.000.000 (one milion) 1.000.000.000 (one bilion) |
Examples :
- 205 : two hundredand five.
- 1.503 : one thousend, five hundred and three
- 3.333 : three thousand, three hundred and thirty three.
2. Plural Nouns
- Regular Plurals
From
add “s” to the noun :
While many plral nouns follow this rule, the spelling somtehing differ.
Examples
| Singular | Plural |
| Snake | Snakes |
| Windows | Windows |
| Box | Boxes |
| Boy | Boya |
| Lorry | Lorries |
| Potato | Potatoes |
| Knife | Kinves |
Spelling of Plurals
Here are some general rules for spelling plural nouns.
| Nouns | Plural | Examples |
| Most nouns | add s | book, books; cup, cups; sprout, sprouts |
| Most nouns that end in ch, sh, s, x, or z | add es | box, boxes; bus, buses; prize, prizes |
| Most nouns that end in a vowel and y | add s | boy, boys; day, days; key, keys |
| Most nouns that end in a consonant and y | y becomes ies | baby, babies; country, countries; spy, spies |
| Most nouns that end in f or fe | f or fe becomes ves | elf, elves; loaf, loaves; thief, thieves |
| Most nouns that end in o | add s | kangaroo, kangaroos; piano, pianos; video, videos |
| Certain nouns that end in a consonant and o | add es | hero, heroes; potato, potatoes; volcano, volcanoes |
Some Exceptions
 |
Certain English nouns change a vowel sound when they become plural. These include goose, geese; man, men; mouse, mice; and tooth, teeth.
Some nouns don’t change at all when they become plural. These include deer, fish, sheep, and species.
A few nouns have plural forms that are left from Old English. These include child, children and ox, oxen.
- Irregural Plurals
| Noun type | Forming the plural | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Ends with -fe | Change f to v then Add -s |
knife  kniveslife liveswife wives |
| Ends with -f | Change f to v then Add -es |
half halves wolf wolvesloaf loaves |
| Ends with -o | Add -es | potato potatoes tomato tomatoesvolcano volcanoes |
| ends with -us | Change -us to -i | cactus cacti nucleus nucleifocus foci |
| ends with -is | Change -is to -es | analysis analyses crisis crisesthesis theses |
| ends with -on | Change -on to -a | phenomenon phenomena criterion criteria |
| ALL KINDS | Change the vowel or Change the word or Add a different ending |
man men foot feetchild childrenperson peopletooth teethmouse mice |
| Unchanging | Singular and plural are the same |
sheep deer fish (sometimes) |
When you are sure that you understand the lesson, you can continue with the exercises.
US -> I
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| alumnus | alumni |
| cactus | cacti |
| focus | foci/focuses |
| fungus | fungi/funguses |
| nucleus | nuclei |
| radius | radii |
| stimulus | stimuli |
IS -> ES
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| axis | axes |
| analysis | analyses |
| basis | bases |
| crisis | crises |
| diagnosis | diagnoses |
| ellipsis | ellipses |
| hypothesis | hypotheses |
| oasis | oases |
| paralysis | paralyses |
| parenthesis | parentheses |
| synthesis | syntheses |
| synopsis | synopses |
| thesis | theses |
IX -> ICES
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| appendix | appendices |
| index | indeces/indexes |
| matrix | matrices/matrixes |
EAU -> EAUX
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| beau | beaux |
| bureau | bureaus/bureaux |
| tableau | tableaux/tableaus |
*** -> EN
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| child | children |
| man | men |
| ox | oxen |
| woman | women |
*** -> A
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| bacterium | bacteria |
| corpus | corpora |
| criterion | criteria |
| curriculum | curricula |
| datum | data |
| genus | genera |
| medium | media |
| memorandum | memoranda |
| phenomenon | phenomena |
| stratum | strata |
NO CHANGE
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| deer | deer |
| fish | fish |
| means | means |
| offspring | offspring |
| series | series |
| sheep | sheep |
| species | species |
OO -> EE
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| foot | feet |
| goose | geese |
| tooth | teeth |
A -> AE
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| antenna | antennae/antennas |
| formula | formulae/formulas |
| nebula | nebulae |
| vertebra | vertebrae |
| vita | vitae |
OUSE -> ICE
| SINGULAR | PLURAL |
| louse | lice |
| mouse | mice |
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