Nouns. Nominative plural

1. The nominative plural endings of nouns in Russian are very easy to remember, if you keep in mind your spelling rules.
2. Keep in mind that in Russian the hardness or softness of a stem should always be preserved as you put endings on it. If you are not sure how to tell if a consonant is hard or soft, review the section on palatalization.
3. Most masculine and feminine nouns in the nominative plural will have the ending -ы if the noun stem ends in a hard consonant:

   gender	singular	plural
   masc	журнал	журналы
   fem	газета	газеты

4. If you are dealing with a feminine noun, you always drop the feminine ending (-а, or -я) before you add the plural ending.
5. If the noun stem ends in a soft consonant, or if it ends in the consonants к, г, х, ч, ж, ш, щ ( Spelling Rule 1), the nominative plural ending will be -и:

   gender	singular	plural
   masculine	портфель	портфели
   	галстук	галстуки
   feminine	книга	книги
   	тётя	тёти

6. Remember to drop the soft sign (-ь) in masculine nouns before you add the plural ending.
7. Some masculine nouns in Russian have what is called a fill vowel immediately before the last consonant. The fill vowel, usually the vowel -е-, is dropped when you add the plural ending to such nouns:

   singular	plural
   отец	отцы
   американец	американцы

8. Neuter nouns that end in -o in the singular (hard stem), have the ending -a in the nominative plural:

   singular	plural
   письмо	письма

9. Neuter nouns that end in -e in the singular (soft stem), take the ending -я in the nominative plural:

   singular	plural
   упражнение	упражнения

10. Remember to always drop the final vowel of a neuter noun before you add the plural ending.
11. There are some Russian nouns that are borrowed from other languages, and that in the singular look like neuter nouns. These nouns in Russian don't have endings for any case. Here are some examples:
    кафе, кофе, радио, пальто
12. Russian, like English, has many irregular plurals. These you have to memorize as you learn them. Here are several examples of such nouns:

    singular	plural
    дом	дома
    муж	мужья
    сын	сыновья
    мать	матери
    дочь	дочери
    сосед	соседи

13. If a borrowed noun ends in a consonant, in Russian it is treated like a masculine noun.
14. If a borrowed noun ends in the vowels -a, or -я, it is treated like a feminine noun.
15. If a borrowed noun ends in any other vowel, it will not take any endings.