Irregular Masculine Plurals: Stressed -а and -я
Most masculine nouns form the nominative plural with -ы or -и. However, a specific group takes a stressed -а (for hard stems) or -я (for soft stems) instead.
These must be memorized. You likely already know examples like дом (house) → дома and город (city) → города.
Here are several nautical terms that follow this pattern. Notice how якорь ends in a soft sign and takes the soft ending -я:
- катер (motorboat) → катера
- парус (sail) → паруса
- борт (side/board) → борта
- якорь (anchor) → якоря
| The captains bought new motorboats. | Капитаны купили новые катера. |
| There were white sails on the sea. | На море были белые паруса. |
| We washed the sides of the ship ourselves. | Мы сами мыли борта корабля. |
| The anchors fell to the bottom. | Якоря упали на дно. |
Official Papers and Titles
The stressed -а / -я ending is also common for documents and certain titles:
- директор (director) → директора
- пропуск (pass) → пропуска
- ордер (warrant) → ордера
- штемпель (stamp) → штемпеля
| The directors have already left, and we remained here. | Директора уже уехали, а мы остались здесь. |
| The inspectors checked our passes. | Инспекторы проверили наши пропуска. |
| Yesterday we received the warrants. | Вчера мы получили ордера. |
| We need these stamps. | Нам нужны эти штемпеля. |
Be careful—not all similar words take this ending. For instance, капитан (captain) and инспектор (inspector) use standard regular plurals (капитаны, инспекторы).
More Irregular Plurals
Another everyday noun that uses this irregular plural is голос (voice) → голоса.
| We heard loud voices, so we woke up. | Мы слышали громкие голоса, поэтому проснулись. |
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