Word endings: -s, -ed and final consonants

Cats ends in s, dogs ends in z, and buses adds a whole syllable.

The end of an English word often carries grammar. The -s ending makes a noun plural (one cat, two cats) or marks a verb with he, she or it (she works). The -ed ending makes the past tense (I walked). If you drop these sounds, the listener may not know if you mean one thing or many, or now or yesterday. This unit covers the three sounds of -s, the three sounds of -ed, and how to end a word cleanly.

Three sounds of -s

The letter s at the end is not always an s sound. After a voiceless sound like p, t, k or f, it is /s/: cats, books, cups. After a voiced sound, including all vowels and sounds like b, d, g, m, n, l and v, it is /z/: dogs, pens, days. After hissing sounds like s, z, sh, ch and j, we add a syllable /ɪz/: buses, wishes, watches, pages. You do not need to think about it much. The ending simply follows the voice of the sound before it.

Three sounds of -ed

The past tense ending -ed works in a similar way. After voiceless sounds it is /t/: walked /wɔkt/, stopped, laughed. After voiced sounds it is /d/: played, cleaned, lived. After t or d, we add a syllable /ɪd/: wanted, needed, started. A common mistake is to say every -ed as a full syllable, so walked becomes walk-ed. Only words ending in t or d get the extra syllable.

End cleanly, with no extra vowel

Korean syllables usually end in a vowel or one simple consonant, and Korean loanwords often add a vowel after English consonants: desk becomes deseukeu, with two extra vowels. A London pronunciation school lists this extra vowel as a common habit of Korean speakers, with examples like book and sandwich. The Seoul National University paper also points out that English has many final consonant clusters, such as rd in word, that do not exist in Korean. In English, desk has one syllable, not three. Close the word on the consonant and stop.