Вимова закінчень -s та -ed

When it matters

Two endings appear in almost every English sentence. The first is -s: plural nouns (cats), verbs after he, she and it (works), the possessive 's (Tom's) and the short forms of is and has (it's, he's). The second is -ed, the regular past (worked). Each ending has three pronunciations. A wrong choice rarely stops communication, but an extra syllable in walked or a missing ending in works makes your English harder to follow. In listening, you also need to catch the short /t/ or /d/ at the end of a verb to know that someone is talking about the past.

How it works

Everything depends on one idea: voiced and voiceless sounds. Put your fingers on your throat and say /v/, then /f/. With /v/ you feel a vibration; with /f/ you feel nothing. /v/ is voiced, /f/ is voiceless. All vowels are voiced. The ending simply copies the voice of the sound before it, because that is easier to say.

The -s ending:

Last sound of the word	Ending	Examples
voiceless /p/, /t/, /k/, /f/, /θ/	/s/	stops, cats, books, laughs, months
any vowel or voiced consonant	/z/	plays, trees, dogs, lives, calls
hissing sound /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/	/ɪz/, an extra syllable	buses, sizes, washes, watches, pages

The -ed ending:

Last sound of the word	Ending	Examples
voiceless, except /t/: /p/, /k/, /f/, /s/, /ʃ/, /tʃ/	/t/	stopped, worked, laughed, missed, washed, watched
any vowel or voiced consonant, except /d/	/d/	played, lived, called, cleaned, opened
/t/ or /d/	/ɪd/, an extra syllable	wanted, started, needed, decided

The extra syllable only appears where it is needed. After a hissing sound, another /s/ or /z/ would disappear, so English adds /ɪ/ before it: bus /bʌs/ becomes buses /ˈbʌsɪz/. After /t/ or /d/, another /t/ or /d/ would disappear, so want /wɒnt/ becomes wanted /ˈwɒntɪd/. Everywhere else the ending is only a consonant, and the word keeps the same number of syllables: work and worked both have one.

Listen to the sound, not the letter. Laugh is spelt with gh but ends in /f/, so it gives laughs /lɑːfs/ and laughed /lɑːft/. Like ends in a silent e, but the last sound is /k/, so liked is /laɪkt/, one syllable. Fix ends in /ks/, a voiceless sound, so fixed is /fɪkst/, while fixes /ˈfɪksɪz/ takes the extra syllable because /s/ is a hissing sound.

Two common verbs change their vowel as well: says /sez/ and does /dʌz/. In American English the extra vowel is often closer to /ə/: /ˈwɒntəd/, /ˈbʌsəz/. Both are fine.

Practice words

The -s ending:

Word	Sound	Compare with
cats	/kæts/	dogs /dɒɡz/
books	/bʊks/	trees /triːz/
works	/wɜːks/	plays /pleɪz/
months	/mʌnθs/	lives /lɪvz/
buses	/ˈbʌsɪz/	sizes /ˈsaɪzɪz/
watches	/ˈwɒtʃɪz/	pages /ˈpeɪdʒɪz/

The -ed ending:

Word	Sound	Compare with
walked	/wɔːkt/	wanted /ˈwɒntɪd/
looked	/lʊkt/	needed /ˈniːdɪd/
stopped	/stɒpt/	started /ˈstɑːtɪd/
played	/pleɪd/	decided /dɪˈsaɪdɪd/
cleaned	/kliːnd/	opened /ˈəʊpənd/
passed	/pɑːst/	past /pɑːst/, the same sound
missed	/mɪst/	mist /mɪst/, the same sound
guessed	/ɡest/	guest /ɡest/, the same sound

The last three pairs show how short the ending is: a past verb can sound exactly like a noun.

Common mistakes

• ✗ /ˈwɔːkɪd/, /ˈlʊkɪd/, /ˈlaɪkɪd/
  ✓ /wɔːkt/, /lʊkt/, /laɪkt/
  The written -ed looks like a syllable, and Ukrainian and Russian spelling teaches you to read every letter. In English it is a syllable only after /t/ or /d/.
• ✗ /dɒks/, /pleɪt/ for dogs, played
  ✓ /dɒɡz/, /pleɪd/
  Russian devoices consonants at the end of a word, so сад sounds like сат, and the habit turns /z/ into /s/ and /d/ into /t/; played then sounds like plate. Ukrainian keeps final consonants voiced (сад, дуб), and that habit helps here. Make the vowel before the voiced ending a little longer.
• ✗ Yesterday I watch a film. She work in a bank.
  ✓ Yesterday I watched /wɒtʃt/ a film. She works /wɜːks/ in a bank.
  In fast speech learners often drop the ending because the group of consonants is hard to say. Practise the clusters slowly: /tʃt/, /ks/, /pt/.
• ✗ /ˈbʊkɪz/, /ˈkætɪz/
  ✓ /bʊks/, /kæts/
  The extra syllable /ɪz/ belongs only after hissing sounds. After other consonants the ending is a single /s/ or /z/.
• ✗ two /bʌs/, three /ˈpeɪdʒ/
  ✓ two /ˈbʌsɪz/, three /ˈpeɪdʒɪz/
  After a hissing sound, a plain /s/ is lost in the word, so the plural disappears. Here the extra syllable is what carries the meaning.

Try it