English Grammar: Noun for Class 4 – A Simple Guide

Class 3 is about the kinds of nouns: common, proper, collective, material and abstract. Class 4 moves on to how nouns change. A noun can become plural (box, boxes), show ownership (Riya’s book) and be masculine or feminine (lion, lioness). There’s also a new idea: some nouns can’t be counted at all.

These are the four topics in this guide, each with its rules and the exceptions that tend to show up in tests.

1. Making Plurals

Most nouns: add -s. book → books, girl → girls, tree → trees

Nouns ending in s, ss, sh, ch, x or z: add -es. bus → buses, glass → glasses, brush → brushes, bench → benches, box → boxes (The extra e is there because “boxs” would be impossible to say.)

Consonant + y: change y to i and add -es. baby → babies, city → cities, story → stories

But vowel + y: just add -s. boy → boys, day → days, key → keys

Most nouns ending in f or fe: change to -ves. leaf → leaves, knife → knives, wolf → wolves

Exceptions to learn: roof → roofs, chief → chiefs, cliff → cliffs

Some nouns ending in o: add -es. potato → potatoes, tomato → tomatoes, hero → heroes

Others just add -s: photo → photos, piano → pianos, radio → radios

Irregular plurals that just have to be learned: man → men, woman → women, child → children, tooth → teeth, foot → feet, mouse → mice, ox → oxen

Same in singular and plural: sheep, deer, aircraft, and usually fish

Always plural: scissors, trousers, spectacles, pyjamas. We say a pair of scissors, not “a scissor”.

2. Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Countable nouns can be counted, so they have a plural: one apple, two apples.

Uncountable nouns can’t be counted one by one, so they have no plural: water, rice, sugar, milk, information, advice, luggage, furniture.

This is where many Indian students lose easy marks because some words that look countable in other languages are uncountable in English:

To count an uncountable noun, put a countable word in front of it: a glass of water, a bag of rice, a piece of advice.

Kids fix these errors fastest when they hear the right form in conversation, which is why speaking practice is built into Bambinos’ online English classes.

3. Possessive Nouns

A possessive noun shows that something belongs to someone. The apostrophe rule depends on the noun.

Singular noun: add ’s. Riya’s bag, the dog’s bowl, my teacher’s car

Plural noun ending in s: add only an apostrophe. the girls’ room (the room belongs to several girls), the teachers’ meeting

Plural noun not ending in s: add ’s. the children’s park, the men’s team

The two easiest ones to mix up: the girl’s bag (one girl) and the girls’ bag (more than one girl). Saying it aloud doesn’t help because they sound identical, so kids need to think about how many owners there are.

And watch out for its: its (no apostrophe) shows possession, as in “The cat licked its paw”. It’s means “it is”, as in “It’s raining”.

4. Gender of Nouns

Nouns fall into four groups:

• Masculine (male): king, uncle, lion, actor

• Feminine (female): queen, aunt, lioness

• Common gender (either): teacher, doctor, friend, child, cousin

• Neuter (neither, things without life): table, book, river

A note for parents: older textbooks pair actor with actress and author with authoress. Many people now use actor and author for everyone, so you’ll see both in books. For Class 4 exams, follow the textbook. It’s still worth kids knowing that language changes over time.

Practice

A. Write the plural.

1. church

2. lady

3. half

4. tomato

5. tooth

6. monkey

7. deer

8. photo

B. Correct the mistakes.

1. She gave me many good advices.

2. The two girl’s bags are on the bench.

3. The dog wagged it’s tail.

C. Find the nouns in this sentence and say whether each is countable or uncountable.

Riya poured some milk into three cups.

Answers

A.

1. churches

2. ladies

3. halves

4. tomatoes

5. teeth

6. monkeys (vowel + y)

7. deer

8. photos

B.

1. a lot of good advice, or many good pieces of advice

2. The two girls’ bags

3. its tail

C. Riya (proper noun), milk (uncountable), cups (countable)

Getting It Right in Writing

All four topics come up together whenever kids write, whether it’s a story, a letter or a diary entry. A quick final check before handing in work helps: are the plurals spelled right, are the apostrophes in the right place, and are uncountable nouns used without an s? That catches most Class 4 mistakes.

Bambinos’ live English classes give Class 4 kids writing practice with feedback from a teacher, so these rules get used, not just memorised. Your kid’s first class at Bambinos is free.