French grammar trick #10: Ails ou aux?

The French language is full of exceptions and nasty rules when it comes to its grammar and orthography. This series of posts will give you some tricks to remember them quite easily.

This little trick will help you remember when the plural of a word ending with ail ends with ails or an aux.

All the words ending with -ail take an -s in their plural form (like attirail/attiraux, paraphernalia), except ail/aulx (garlic), travail/travaux (work), bail/baux (lease), soupirail/soupireaux (basement window), vitrail/vitraux (stained glass), émail/émaux(énamel), corail/coraux(coral)…

This post concludes this series of ten French grammar tricks. The previous ones are listed here:

French grammar trick #1: a or à?
French grammar trick #2: One or two Rs?
French grammar trick #3: Où or ou?
French grammar trick #4: Which adjectives are placed before their noun in French?
French grammar trick #5: être or avoir?
French grammar trick #6: Past participle or infinitive?
French grammar trick #7: Leur or leurs?
French grammar trick #8: Ce or se?
French grammar trick #9: Ous or oux?

The next French grammar tricks will be on demand only, so don’t forget to upvote this post if you like it, and leave a comment if you want me to deal with a specific grammatic point.

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