Learn Spanish (Latin America): El perro y el gato son animales.

The singular word is animal, which ends in a consonant (the letter l). In Spanish, to make a noun plural when it ends in a consonant, you add -es. That gives us animales.

Why do we use the plural verb son if perro and gato are singular words?

Son means 'are'. Even though el perro (the dog) and el gato (the cat) are singular on their own, together they form a plural group ('they'). Therefore, we must use the plural verb son.

Do I really need to repeat el before both animals?

Yes! In English, you can say 'the dog and cat', skipping the second 'the'. But in Spanish, it is the rule to repeat the article (like el or la) before every noun in a series. That is why we say el perro y el gato.

What if the sentence was 'The dogs and the cats are animals'? How do we make the pets plural?