Russian Plurals
English adds -s. Russian swaps the ending — and which ending depends on gender and spelling. Two rules plus a short irregular list cover almost everything.
The Core Endings
Masculine and feminine nouns share the same plural endings: -ы (default) or -и (after soft letters and the 7-letter rule below).
Один стол, два стола… нет — столы!
One table, two tables… no — tables!
Note: Careful: after numbers 2–4 Russian uses a different form (стола). That's the numbers lesson. Plain plural = столы.
The 7-Letter Spelling Rule
This rule will follow you through all of Russian, so meet it early: after к, г, х, ж, ш, щ, ч you can never write ы — write и instead.
It's not grammar, it's spelling — Russian simply never writes ы after those seven letters.
Neuter Plurals
Neuter nouns flip their vowel: -о → -а and -е → -я.
Это новые слова.
These are new words.
Note: слово → слова. The adjective новые is plural too — everything agrees.
Irregulars You Can't Avoid
A handful of very common nouns have irregular plurals — exactly the words you'll use most, of course:
Мои друзья живут в Москве.
My friends live in Moscow.
Note: друг → друзья. You'll say this word so often the irregular form will stick by itself.
💬 Looking at photos
Common Mistakes
- Writing ы after к, г, х, ж, ш, щ, ч. книгы is impossible — книги.
- Adding an ending instead of replacing. машина → машины, not машинаы. The -а leaves before -ы arrives.
- Regularizing человек and ребёнок. The plurals are люди and дети — different words entirely.
- Confusing plural with the after-numbers form. Два стола (two tables) is not the plural — столы is. Numbers play by their own rules (next lesson).
What You Can Do Now
You can talk about more than one of anything: книги, друзья, города. Combined with Это… and У меня есть…, your sentence range just doubled.