Changing the last letter

The plurals for some irregular nouns are formed by changing the last letter of the noun and adding an ‘s’ at the end.

Words ending in ‘f’ (or ‘fe’) are an example of this type of noun.

To form the plural of these nouns, we change the ‘f’ to ‘ve’ and add an ‘s’

Example:

Loaf ------------------------> Leaves

 Plural (Loaf + ves)

Shelf ----------------------------> Shelves

   Plural (Shelf + ves)

Leaf -----------------------------------> Leaves

  Plural (Leaf + ves)

Life --------------------------------------> Lives

   Plural (Life + ves)