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The boy, the girl, and the elephant

You've already seen how in Italian usually feminine words (like ragazza) end in ‑e in the plural, and masculine words (like ragazzo) end in ‑i.

However, there are also some nouns that end in ‑e (like animale) in the singular.

These nouns end in ‑i in the plural (animali).

Gli elefanti bevono acqua.
The elephants drink water.

Tragically, like in English, some Italian words have completely crazy plurals. For example, you're already familiar with l’uomo and its special plural form gli uomini.

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Silent but deadly

At the beginning of a word, the letter h is silent in Italian.

But when h follows c or g, it changes the sound of these letters.

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Put an h in it

Usually, when forming the plural of a noun, you want to keep the same sound as in the original word.

Because c + ‑i and c + ‑e (as in cibo and cena) would change the sound of ‑co and ‑ca, you'll need to add an h in between to block the sound change.

The same happens with g + ‑i and g + ‑e (as in mangi and gelato) because they'd sound different from ‑go and ‑ga.

So remember that the plural forms of words that end in ‑co, ‑ca, ‑go, and ‑ga usually include an h.

Loro sono cuochi.
They are cooks.