Animals and Pets
Learn 20 easy A1 English words for animals and pets - cat, sheep, rabbit, insect, wild - with irregular plurals, a story and a quiz.
Animals give you three of the strangest plurals in English – one sheep, two sheep; one mouse, two mice – so this lesson is worth learning carefully. Here are twenty animals and animal words, from the cat on your street to the lion in the zoo. Learn them, then come with my little sister on the day my father tried to solve a problem by going to the zoo.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˈænɪml/
Any living thing that is not a plant: a cat, a bird, a fish.
Which animal do you like best?
/pet/
An animal that lives in your home with you.
A cat is an easy pet.
/kæt/
A small animal with soft fur that many people keep at home.
Our cat sleeps eighteen hours a day.
/dɒɡ/
A friendly animal that people keep at home and take for walks.
Their dog barks at everybody.
/bɜːd/
An animal with wings and feathers that can usually fly.
A small brown bird sits on our window.
/hɔːs/
A big strong animal that people ride.
He learned to ride a horse at seven.
/kaʊ/
The big farm animal that gives us milk.
The cows are in the field.
/ʃiːp/
A farm animal with thick white wool. Plural is also sheep.
There were twenty sheep on the hill.
/maʊs/
A very small grey animal with a long thin tail. Plural: mice.
There is a mouse in the kitchen.
/ˈræbɪt/
A small animal with long ears that jumps.
My cousin keeps two rabbits.
/ˈlaɪən/
A big wild cat from Africa.
The lion slept all afternoon.
/ˈelɪfənt/
The biggest land animal, with a very long nose.
An elephant never forgets, people say.
/ˈmʌŋki/
A clever animal that climbs trees and has long arms.
The monkeys took a visitor’s hat.
/sneɪk/
A long animal with no legs.
Some snakes are dangerous, most are not.
/ˈɪnsekt/
A very small animal with six legs, like a bee or an ant.
There is an insect on your shoulder.
/ˈspaɪdə(r)/
A small animal with eight legs that makes a web. It is not an insect.
A big spider lives behind the door.
/teɪl/
The long part at the back of an animal.
The cat moves her tail when she is angry.
/wɪŋ/
Birds and insects fly with them. They have two.
The bird broke its wing.
/fiːd/
To give food to a person or an animal. Past tense: fed.
Do not feed the animals.
/waɪld/
Living in nature, not with people. It rhymes with child.
Lions and elephants are wild animals.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
A Clever Solution
My little sister asked for a pet every day for two years. My mother said no every day for two years. So for her seventh birthday my father took us to the zoo instead, and he told my mother in the car that this was a clever solution.
It is not a big zoo. There is one old lion who sleeps in the corner and cares about nobody, an elephant that walks the same eight steps all afternoon, and a family of monkeys who are clearly the only ones there enjoying themselves. Behind thick glass there is a snake, and my sister stood in front of it and looked at it for eleven minutes without once blinking.
The best part is at the back, where the wild animals stop and a small farm begins. There is a cow, three sheep, one very serious horse, and a low wooden box full of grey and white rabbits. You can pay half a dinar and feed them, and my sister fed them for so long that my father ran out of coins and had to ask a stranger.
There is also a house full of birds. A big grey bird with a long red tail shouted something at my father through the wire and he jumped backwards, which my sister still talks about two years later. In the corner there was a spider in a glass box, and next to it an insect with bright green wings that nobody in our family could stop looking at.
We came home tired and my sister did not mention pets for three whole days. Then in November a small grey cat arrived at our door in the rain, sat down on the step, and looked at my mother without moving. She stayed. My father now says that we do not own an animal; he says the animal owns us. We have still never had a dog, and there is a mouse somewhere behind the kitchen cupboard that the cat has decided is not her responsibility.
Three plurals that break the rules:
one sheep → two sheep (no change)
one fish → two fish (no change)
one mouse → two mice
Everything else here is normal: cats, dogs, birds, horses, cows, rabbits, lions, monkeys, snakes, insects, spiders.
He, she or it? For animals in general, English uses it: Look at that bird – it is beautiful. But for a pet you know, people use he and she: Our cat is old now. She sleeps all day. Both are correct; the difference is how close you are to the animal.
One small fact worth knowing in English: a spider is not an insect. Insects have six legs, spiders have eight. English speakers are surprisingly firm about this.
Pronunciation: wild rhymes with child, not with filled. And mouse has the same vowel as house.
At home: pet, cat, dog, rabbit, mouse, bird.
On the farm: horse, cow, sheep.
Wild: lion, elephant, monkey, snake.
Very small: insect, spider.
The parts and the verbs: animal, tail, wing, feed, wild.
Answer these two out loud: Do you have a pet? Which wild animal would you most like to see?
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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