Plural of nouns

The plural of Belarusian nouns

Belarusian forms the plural with two endings, and which one you get depends on the consonant in front of it rather than on the gender of the noun. The academic grammar states the rule for neuter nouns in exactly this shape, and the same split runs through the other genders: -ы after a hard consonant, -і after a soft consonant and after к and х.

The stem changes too

Three consonants regularly swap when an -і or -е ending lands on them. This is worth learning early, because it turns up again in every case ending you meet later:

• г → з: нага → на назе (on the foot), кніга → у кнізе (in the book)
• к → ц: рука → у руцэ (in the hand)
• х → с: страха → на страсе (on the roof)

Vowels move when the stress does

Belarusian spelling follows the pronunciation, so a shift of stress rewrites the word: горад becomes гарады (the unstressed о is written а), сястра becomes сёстры, лес becomes лясы. Nothing irregular is happening — you are seeing akanne and jakanne applied to a new stress pattern.

Nouns that come only in the plural

Some words have no singular at all: дзверы (door), нажніцы (scissors), грошы (money), Дзяды (the autumn day of remembrance). The academic grammar notes that these decline on the same patterns as ordinary nouns, so nothing new has to be learned for them.

If your first language is English

English adds one ending and stops. Belarusian changes the ending, sometimes the stem consonant and sometimes the vowel, all in the same word, so горад → гарады can look like a different noun. Learn the plural as part of the word from the first day rather than deriving it later.