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Today I'm going to go over how to pronounce the plural of nouns.  A noun is made plural in writing by adding either an -S or an -ES to the end of the word.  For example, cat/cats, church/churches.  The way the plural is pronounced depends on the last sound of the word when it is in singular form.

There are three different categories.  The first is when the noun in singular form ends with a voiced sound, the second is when it ends with an unvoiced sound, and the third is both voiced and unvoiced sounds -- special cases.

When the last sound of the noun is a voiced sound, then the plural sound is also a voiced sound, zz, zz, written in IPA with the Z symbol.  Zz.  So what is a voiced sound?  Any vowel or diphthong is voiced.  So, for example, the word tree.  It ends with the 'ee' as in 'she' vowel.  Tree.  Therefore, when the S is written, it is pronounced zz in the plural form.  Trees, trees.  The word cafe ends with the 'ay' as in 'say' sound [], a diphthong.  So, it is also voiced.  Therefore the plural, cafes, zz, is pronounces with the Z sound.  There are also voiced consonants.  As I said, a few voiced consonants are in the third category, special cases.  So not every voiced consonant is in this first category, where the plural is pronounced zz, but many are.  They are:  [ ].  A consonant example:  the word apple ends with the L sound, one of the voiced consonants in category 1.  Apple, apples.  It is then pronounced in plural with the voiced sound.  Apples, apples.

When the final sound of the noun is an unvoiced sound, then the plural is also pronounced unvoiced, ss, ss with the S sound.  For example, the word ship.  It ends with P, pp, which is an unvoiced sound.  So the plural, ships, is pronounced with ss, the unvoiced S sound.  Ships.  As I said, there are some unvoiced sounds that are in the third category special cases.  In this second category, where the plural is pronounced ss, are the following consonants:  [].

In the third category, the plural is pronounced with two different sounds:  the 'ih' as in 'sit' and the zz voiced consonant sound.  -Es.  There are six different sounds in this category.  Three are voiced and three are unvoiced.  They are [] Let's look at an example word.  Wish ends with the sh sound.  It is one of these six special cases sounds, wish, so the plural will be pronounced with the 'ih' as in 'sit' and the zz sound.  -Es.  Wish, -es, wishes.  Wishes.

Because this third category adds a vowel sound and a consonant sound to the plural, it's adding an extra syllable.  The first two categories added just a consonant sound, so that did not add a syllable.  For example, cat, one syllable, cats, also one syllable.  But wish is one syllable and wishes is two syllables.  This plural syllable that's added at the end of the word will always be unstressed.

Let's look now at some nouns and determine how the plural will be pronounced based on the three categories you just learned.  Age.  The final sound here is one of the special cases, so it is pronounced -es in plural form.  Ages.  Two syllables, ages.  The ages of my children are three and six.  Time.  It ends with a voiced consonant, not a special case, so the plural is also pronounced with the voiced zz sound.  Time, times.  Both one syllable.  Times.  I've seen that movie three times.  Box.  The final sound here is the S sound, even though the final letter is an x.  Box.  Therefore it is a special case sound and the plural is pronounced -es, adding another syllable.  Boxes.  Boxes, I need moving boxes.  Dog.  The final sound here is a voiced consonant, not a special case consonant, so the plural is voiced - zz - dogs.  Dogs, one syllable.  I prefer dogs to cats.  That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.