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I have a question related to usage of the word consultation. Can you please tell me if I should use singular or plural form of the word in the following context?

  • Consultations require a personal visit. I will not be able to respond to questions over phone, text message or email.

  • Consultation requires a personal visit. I will not be able to respond to questions over phone, text message or email.

As a tax consultant, I want my clients not to call me or message for any query. If they want to talk to me they must come to my home. So which of the following sentence sounds natural?

Can anyone who knows the language well please answer my question?

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Either can be correct. Consultations refers to events, and those are countable. A single such event would be a consultation (singular).

"Consultation** can also refer to a process, which can occur in a single interaction or over multiple interactions. This usage isn't countable. An example would be, "We arrived at the decision after consultation with experts." That consultation could have involved many interactions.

In your examples, consultations clearly refers to events, or specific interactions, since only they can be plural. Consultation does not have an article or "count" word, so it would generally be interpreted to refer to the process of consultation, which would apply to any specific event that was part of that process. This would be equivalent to saying, "If you want to consult me, do it in person."

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Either way is grammatically fine, but the first sentence is a better choice because you offer a service that gives consultations to multiple people.

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I would write

Any consultation requires a personal visit. I will not be able to respond to questions by phone, text message or email.

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