Japanese

To turn certain words into plural forms, we can add たち to the end of a noun or pronoun. It can be written in hiragana, but is also sometimes written in kanji (<ruby>達tachi</ruby>).

たち is often used with personal pronouns such as <ruby>私watashi</ruby> + たち = <ruby>私watashi</ruby>たち (we, us), or あなた + たち = あなたたち (you, you guys). 

It can be used to mark a group of people, e.g. <ruby>学gaku</ruby><ruby>生sei</ruby>たち (students), <ruby>子ko</ruby><ruby>供domo</ruby>たち (children). Of course, <ruby>学gaku</ruby><ruby>生sei</ruby> and <ruby>子ko</ruby><ruby>供domo</ruby> can be used on their own to mean ‘students’ and ‘children’, so the key difference here is that たち implies there is a group in particular you are referring to. 
<table class="ui celled table">
 <tbody>
 <tr data-item="264094"></tr>
 <tr data-item="264095"></tr>
		<tr data-item="265132"></tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

The suffix ら (<ruby>等ra</ruby>) can also be used with some nouns to pluralize them, but as it can come across as very informal or direct it is safer to use たち when in doubt. 
However, ら is used with <ruby>彼kare</ruby> to make <ruby>彼kareら</ruby> (they, them) which is more commonly used than <ruby>彼kareたち</ruby>. 
 ら is also commonly used with これ and それ.

<table class="ui celled table">
 <tbody>
		<tr data-item="264103"></tr>
 <tr data-item="264100"></tr>
 <tr data-item="264101"></tr>
 </tbody>
</table>

Pluralizing suffixes - たち and ら

hiragana character

kanji

adnominal

adverb

auxiliary

conjunction

compound

i-adjective

interjection

noun

na-adjective

numeral

particle

case particle

conjunctive particle

discourse particle

prefix

pronoun

suffix

verb

sentence

hiragana writing

kanji writing

kanji component

reading vocabulary

katakana writing

katakana character

godan - group 1

itidan - group 2

group 3

transitive

intransitive

proper noun

discourse

phrase

expression

Word	この　学が校っこう　の　こどもたち　は　とても　優やさしい　です。 kono gakkou no kodomotati ha totemo yasasii desu.
Meaning	The children at this school are really kind.
Part of speech	phrase
Pronunciation

to be	です desu
topic particle	は ha
possessive case particle	の no
this ... ^adnominal	この kono
school	学がっ校こう gakkou
child	子こ供ども kodomo
very, extremely	とても totemo
pluralizing suffix	たち tati
gentle, tender, kind, friendly	優やさしい yasasii

Japanese

kono gakkou no kodomotati ha totemo yasasii desu.

Breakdown of kono gakkou no kodomotati ha totemo yasasii desu.

Elon.io is an online language learning platform