Indefinite articles and plurals
English has 'a' and 'some'. French splits 'a' by gender — un for masculine, une for feminine — and uses des for the plural ('some'). Forming a plural noun is mostly easy: add an -s that you don't pronounce. The article carries the work of telling the listener that something is plural — without a clear plural article, chat and chats sound exactly the same.
un, une, des
un = a / one (masculine): un livre, un chat, un ami. une = a / one (feminine): une maison, une table, une amie. des = some / a few (plural, both genders): des chats, des maisons, des amis. Important: where English often drops the article ('I have friends'), French keeps des (j'ai des amis). Skipping it sounds wrong.
Forming the plural — usually +s
Most nouns add a silent -s: livre → livres, chat → chats, maison → maisons, étudiant → étudiants. The s is not pronounced — what you hear is the article: le chat (luh sha) → les chats (lay sha). Words already ending in -s, -x, or -z don't change at all: le fils (the son) → les fils, le nez (the nose) → les nez.
Plurals in -x
A small group of nouns takes -x instead of -s in the plural — also silent. Words ending in -eau or -eu: le bureau (office/desk) → les bureaux, le château (castle) → les châteaux, le cheveu (hair) → les cheveux. Words ending in -al usually change to -aux: le journal (newspaper) → les journaux, un animal → des animaux. None of these endings are pronounced — again, the article does the work for the listener.
All the articles together
Singular: le / la / l' (the), un / une (a). Plural: les (the), des (some). One handy trick — if you don't remember a noun's gender, the plural lets you off the hook: les chats, des chats work whether chat is masculine or feminine. (Singular gives it away: le chat vs la chat would mark you as a beginner.)
Adjectives also pluralize
Adjectives match their noun in both gender and number: un grand chat → des grands chats, une grande maison → des grandes maisons. Most adjectives just add -s for plural and -e for feminine (then -es for feminine plural). Like noun plurals, the -s is silent. So un petit livre and des petits livres sound the same; the article tells you which is which.
