How to Hear the Plural S - Improve Your English Listening Skills

Hey!

How's it going?

Welcome to Go Natural English.

I have a great question from an audience member named Gusty.

Gusty asks, "How can I hear -- how can I improve my listening comprehension to hear the plural

"s" sound?"

Gusty was telling me about how in his English class, he has to fill in the blanks.

Maybe he was doing a listening exercise, maybe a worksheet, or a test.

And he has a really hard time understanding when to put an "s" at the end of the word.

He knows the grammar, of course -- "s" is for plural but for listening it's so hard

to hear that "s", and that's a great question.

I hear this problem, or this complaint, from a lot of English learners and it's a really

common problem.

So, it's important to talk about it.

So, Gusty, thank you for asking that question.

If you'd like to ask more questions, the best way is to come to gonaturalenglish.com/contact.

Also at gonaturalenglish.com, while you're there, you can pick up a free eBook guide

to fluency in English and check out the premium Go Natural English course with a lot more

practice and support and real natural conversations between two or more people.

Alright, so, Gusty asked about the plural "s".

Well, sometimes you know there's going to be a plural "s" from the context, right?

So, if you hear someone say, "I love pets.

I have four dogs."

Well, you don't even have to hear the plural "s" to know that if I say "four" then I'm

going to have a plural "s", right?

I'm not going to say "four dog."

I need to say "four dogs".

So, you don't even need to hear it though because you know from the context.

But what about if I didn't say "four"?

What if I just said, "I have dogs"?

Well, we need to train our ears.

You need to think about the fact that English will have the plural "s", and expose yourself

to a lot of English.

Understand that the Plural "s" has different sounds.

It could be either a "z" sound as the example that I gave just now "dogs".

So, you're listening for a "z" sound, or it could sound like "s", like an "s"as in "I

have four cats."

Right?

So, we have two different plural "s" sounds that you need to be listening for.

So, those are my two tips, right?

You have to listen to the context -- actually three tips -- listen to the context, listen

to a lot of English to train your ears, and understand that there are two different plural

"s" sounds, "s" and "z".

Alright, I hope this has been helpful for you.

If you'd like to learn more, come back to gonaturalenglish.com.

I'll see you there.

Bye for now.