In the examples that follow, all you have to know is that all nouns
in Esperanto are marked by the ending "o", and that plural nouns
have a "j" after the "o".
Several things are gramatically plural in English but singular in Esperanto.
In order to discuss several of the objects in English, you have to use
a form of measure:
pairs of pants, bowls of oats
pants pantalono
sissors tran^cilo
oats aveno
The word "sheep" (^safo[j]) is different: the same word is used for the singular
and the plural: only other words in the sentence indicate the number.
The words "news" and "information" are strange: they are gramatically
singular, but can be used to express notions which can be either
singular or plural. E.g. in Esperanto you have to specify whether you
are talking about a "piece of news" (nova^jo) or several distinct
items of news (nova^joj).
An example from a fascinating book "Lingvistikaj aspektoj de Esperanto"
(Linguistical aspects of Esperanto) gives a humorous example of how
confusing this can be. Compare the following three sentences.
I ate a meal.
The cow ate some meal.
That was *some* meal!
-Neal McBurnett, ihnp4!druny!neal