SINGULAR AND PLURAL NOUNS IN SPANISH II nouns whose singular form ends in "s"

The rules that we saw in the previous post resolve a large part of the cases regarding the change of nouns from singular to plural. There are, however, some cases not covered by such rules, which we must therefore consider separately.

As we have already said, the plural form of nouns usually has an "s" at the end of the word. What happens, then, if the singular form already ends with an "s"?  Well, that depends on whether or not the noun has an accent mark on the last syllable. If it hasn't, the noun stays the same in its singular and plural form. Some examples are "crisis" (crisis), "paréntesis" (parenthesis) and all the days of the week from Monday to Friday; "lunes", "martes", miércoles", "jueves" y "viernes".

"Las sucesivas crisis expulsan a los jóvenes de las clases medias y ensanchan la desigualdad" (The successive crises expel young people from the middle classes and widen inequality).

"La fuga de una exministra que desató una crisis diplomática entre Ecuador y Argentina" (The escape of a former minister that sparked a diplomatic crisis between Ecuador and Argentina)

Note that in these two pieces of news, the noun "crisis" appears first in the plural and then in the singular, and there is, however, no change in the word.

If, however, the noun ends in "s", but it has an accent mark on the last syllable, it does not remain the same, but "es" is added and the accent mark is removed. Some examples are "anís / anises" (Anise) and "compás / compases" (compass / compasses).

"Cómo dibujar un círculo perfecto sin compás" (How to draw a perfect circle without a compass).

"Los mejores compases para conseguir el aprobado en dibujo técnico" (The best compasses to get the pass in technical drawing)

There are still a few more considerations related to the number of nouns in Spanish, but these will be covered in a future post.