A Few Unconventional Plurals

This lesson is based on the premise that you basically know how to form the plural of nouns. To help you get caught up, very generally, if a noun ends in "o," it's usually masculine and the plural usually will end in "i." If it ends in "e," the plural will also likely end in "i", and if a singular noun ends in "a," (usually feminine), the plural will most likely end in "e." To learn more, check out Daniela's lessons about plurals here and here.

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. In two different videos this week, we find unconventional plurals, one of which is well worth knowing, and one that you likely won't run into every day.

In one video, Arianna goes to Lucca. She learns that Lucca still has its ancient walls: le mura. The singular is il muro (the wall).

Le mura hanno tutto un percorso sopra che puoi fare,

The walls have a path on top that you can go on,

Caption 63, In giro per l'Italia - Lucca - Part 1
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To help you remember the name for "wall," in Italian, think of a mural, which is a piece of art, like a painting or enlarged photograph, right on a wall. Or think of "intramural" — within the walls of a school or institution.

Anna and Marika are busy in the kitchen dealing with fish, and more specifically, anchovies. They are pretty small fish, so taking out the guts is a tedious job they gladly leave to the fish vendor.

You might be familiar with the adjective interiore (inside, internal, interior) but there is a noun, le interiora, which means "the guts," "the entrails," or "the internal organs," and is always in the plural: interiora.

Le alici dovranno essere, ehm... senza testa e eviscerate. Quindi bisogna togliere le interiora.

The anchovies should be, ehm... without their heads and gutted. Therefore, one needs to remove the entrails.

Captions 13-15, L'Italia a tavola - Involtini di alici - Part 1
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And let's not forget some other unconventional plurals that work pretty much the same way:

un uovo, due uova (one egg, two eggs)

Prendiamo una forchetta e iniziamo a sbattere le uova...

We take a fork and begin beating the eggs...

Caption 13, Adriano - Pasta alla carbonara - Part 2
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un braccio, due braccia (one arm, two arms)

Ma com'è? E com'è? C'ha due gambe, due braccia, due occhi, come deve essere?

But what's she like? And what's she like? She has two legs, two arms, two eyes. What should she be like?

Captions 13-14, Il Commissario Manara - S2EP3 - Delitto tra le lenzuola - Part 4
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un miglio, due miglia (one mile, two miles)

La Mille Miglia è la corsa più bella del mondo!

The "Mille Miglia" [one thousand miles] is the greatest race in the world!

Caption 33, La Mille Miglia - del passato per vivere quella di oggi - Part 3
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un migliaio di, poche migliaia di (about a thousand, a few thousand)

Il debito era di poche migliaia di euro.

The debt was of a few thousand euros.

Caption 40, Il Commissario Manara - S1EP8 - Morte di un buttero - Part 14
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un paio, due paia (a pair, two pairs)

Ma quattro paia di scarpe vanno bene lo stesso.

But four pairs of shoes are fine, too.

Caption 52, Psicovip - I Visitatori - Ep 14
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This list is not complete, but we'll look at other such nouns in a future lesson.

Topics Nouns Plurals Vocabulary