Hi, everyone! 😁

Happy Monday!

Today for our lesson, we're going to go over countable vs. uncountable nouns! 🤩

🤔 What is the difference between a countable and an uncountable noun?

The difference, my friend, is exactly how it sounds!

If a noun is countable, then you can easily see that there is either one or more than one of it when you see it.

• Examples: "computer," "dog," "kiss," "sheet of paper," etc.

If a noun is uncountable, then you can't see that there's a certain number of it.

• Examples: "air," "water," "happiness," "paper," etc.

🔴 Words that depend on countability/uncountability

^(* Words marked with an asterisk are technically supposed to be used in proper English, but it's also very common in standard English to hear their uncountable counterparts instead. For example: ")^(Amount) ^(of books" or "I have) ^(less) ^(books." "Greater," too, has a very nuanced rule for using it relative to "fewer." You could say "a greater number of," or "greater than [number] [things].")

• "I see a bag of trash." vs "I see some trash."
• "There are many things to do." vs "There is much to do."
• "The number of people keeps growing." vs "The amount of money keeps growing."
• "I have a lot of friends." and "I have a lot of work."
  • Note that "a lot of" is used in both countable and uncountable situations
• "He has fewer neighbors than I do." vs "He has less free time than I do."

🟡 Making uncountable nouns countable

Words that are uncountable can be made countable if combined with other words. This makes a compound word.

Why would you want to do this? Maybe you wanted to be more specific, or maybe you had to or wanted to use the plural with it but weren't able to because of restraints.

• "We'll have some water."
  • "We'll have a glass of water." or
  • "We'll have some glasses of water."
• "There's paper on the desk."
  • "There's a sheet of paper on the desk."
  • "There are seven sheets of paper on the desk."
• "We're buying some furniture."
  • "We're buying a piece of furniture."
  • "We're buying two pieces of furniture."

Note that if you

These ones do:

Milk and cheese are delicious.

These ones don't:

Effort and care is present throughout the report.

Likewise:

There is milk and cheese on the counter.

Hi there.

Yesterday, while chatting with someone I wrote something like "I would take the blue, yellow, and black paint". As what I took was three little jars containing paint in those colors, was that the proper way to write it? Should it be "paints" instead? Or should I say something like "blue, yellow, and black tempera paint jars"?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, native English speakers.

Would you please take a look at the following sentence? Should we fill "an", "the" or no article in the blank to complete the sentence? This is the first sentence of the first paragraph of an article, used as an exercise (a cloze) to test the English proficiency of students of a senior high in mainland China. My relative, teaching them, gets confused about what to fill in there and turns to me for help. I'm not so clear about when to use "risk" as a countable noun and when to use it as an uncountable noun either. When I first read the sentence, I felt that "an" and having no article there would both work. However, after I browsed the web, I got ever more confused. Help me out, please. Thank you.

According to a study published recently, grey hair is linked with ________ increased risk of heart disease in men.

I'm a programmer and a native English speaker from the U.S.

The way I learned it, you could say "I am writing a program", or "I am writing code" or "writing some code".

If instead you said, "I am writing a code" or "writing some codes", and you were talking about a program, it meant you were either a foreign speaker, or someone who barely knows what a computer is (or you were pretending to be one of those things).

Now I hang out in programming subreddits, where I see people use "codes" countably like that all the time. These people are novice programmers, but in general it's not like just started programming yesterday. They certainly aren't new to computers.

In these cases, I would assume that the poster is a non-native speaker, but oftentimes the rest the post reads like native English. It sounds awful to my ear. But is it something that native speakers say now? Is it younger people? Is it non-U.S. people?

Hi all. I recently started a YouTube channel teaching English on YouTube. I'd like to share it here for people who are trying to improve their English. I try to make the videos accessible to people who are just getting started while also having something for more advanced learners too. It is also supposed to be fun or at least not as serious as most teaching channels.

The latest video is about countable and uncountable nouns - https://youtu.be/2ZEliJT0uzk and I would love it if you check it out. Of course any feedback is appreciated.

A student of mine came across two example sentences in a book, and I'm having a hard time finding the particular rule that says when to use "the" in either sentence:

> > Police came to the scene of the crime. > > The police came to the scene of the crime.

Or another: > > The bucket and pail floated out to sea.

> The bucket and pail floated out to the sea.

I feel like the answer is on the tip of my tongue but it's also eluding me at the moment. Any explanations would be greatly appreciated!

I saw a video in which an American fighter was trash-talking his opponent, and he said "the guy you chose to fight has less followers than my dog." Why did he use "less" instead if "fewer"?

Thanks

I’m ranting with frustration so first, apologies....

I don’t get articles - a/an, the, or no article. It does not exist in my native language and the rules around them just confuse me. Especially when it comes to the whole (un)countable noun matter.

The way I understand it, uncountable nouns don’t take a/an. Fine. But then..

Why is [theory] a countable noun when [equipment] is not? Theory is not tangible and often involves a complex web of hypotheses and premises. Equipment usually refers to an actual object, a physical thing, like a hammer. Yet it’s not countable?

*edit: looks like the word theory is both countable AND uncountable depending on the context. Why oh why......

There are many other ones that I don’t get. Fish (as in food) is non countable? How come? Can you not count fish, really??? But then why is “idea” countable?

I get why words like butter are uncountable. I get why the word information is uncountable.

But then there are just words where I don’t get why they are treated as uncountable.

PS. Why use articles at all? Clearly you can live without them (since there are languages without them) so how did it all begin? Oh no, don’t even get me started on gender articles in French German etc. Why is the word table feminine? Who knows.....

Hi all,

I'm working on a little project for generating phrases, user names, etc. And for this I need to create an enormous list of nouns. I need to categorise these nouns as concrete, abstract, countable and/or uncountable nouns.

The Oxford Advance Learner's Dictionary seems to be the most useful dictionary i've found — which usually lists a given noun as either being countable or uncountable (or both, depending on the context). But i'd absolutely love it if there were an online dictionary where I could filter all the nouns they had by whether they were countable or uncountable, rather than having to search each noun if i'm unsure. Even better would be if one could filter by concrete or abstract nouns...

Does anyone know if an online dictionary has this sort of functionality?

Much like less/fewer, use number for identifying things that can be separated or enumerated (how many) and use amount for mass nouns (how much).

I hear amount used instead of number almost constantly, but technically number is proper. It's nitpicky, yes, but a trained listener will notice the difference.

For example you don't say, "the amount of bass in that lake has almost doubled." instead say "the number of bass in that lake..." (That was the first example that popped into my head because I just read a post about guys with fish in dating profile pics. :))

More examples:

Amount of money

Number of dollar bills

Amount of traffic

Number of cars

Amount of love

Number of people

Amount of soda

Number of cans

Amount of food

Number of dinners

Etc.

Why YSK: because you will sound more educated and intelligent to people who know the difference, for example, when speaking to a professor or in a job interview. It may also be helpful if you're in editing or advertising or any other field where proper grammar is important.

Edit: added italics

Hi

So, I do realize that countable nouns should be pluralized for generalization. So, lemons are sour, and candies are sweet.

Can I use them in singular form for generalization? Not generalizing them as an idea, but as a specie. So, phrases like:

"apple to orange comparison" or "easy peasy lemon squeezy" In this sense, apple, orange, and lemon are countable and singular without determiners.

They do soud proper, are they?

Is it:

"I am wearing a red shirt, a yellow hat, and a blue scarf?"

or is:

"I am wearing a red shirt, yellow hat, and blue scarf?"

acceptable?

As an L2 learner, this question in the title has been bothering me. I've learned English for years, and I still don't fully understand what to use when a noun can be used as either countable or uncountable noun. For example, I find the following examples when I search "discount":

They usually give you a discount if you buy multiple copies.

They offer a ten percent discount on travel for students.

The above sentences contain an indefinite article before discount, which means it is countable here. I see most of the search result show usages like them, with an indefinite article. Then I saw this sentence:

The merchandise is sold at 10 percent discount.

There is no article, which means discount is uncountable here...? But I hardly see a difference.

What about this sentence:

I'm happy when I eat candy.

Why just candy without an article? Is it because candy here indicates a kind, not an actual single unit?

I would appreciate your help. Thank you!

I am a Japanese highschool student learning English. As I look up some words in my dictionary, I am always amazed at almost every abstract noun has both usage as a countable noun and a uncountable noun, and has slightly different meanings for each usage. I felt respect for foreigners in Japan speaking Japanese correctly and fluently (my mother is one of them) because they must have learned Japanese so hard. At the same time, I wondered if native speakers of English really differentiate them.

Hello everyone!

I have a question. I had a feeling like omitting an article sometimes can have some meaning (not a mistake), like making a word sound like an abstract term or some philosophic category. Like "Man is a sentient creature". Am I right here or is there something to correct me on this?

Also, a side question, I noticed that in plenty of common collocations an article is omitted. "Just in case", "case" is definitely a countable noun but here it lacks articles. Is it possible somehow to spot such phrases or is memorizing the only way?

Thank you!

Hi guys, so here the deal. I saw a table with transcriptions. In the table were examples like: a soup, a chocolate, an ice cream. And I didn't get it. I thought these nouns are uncountable.

After, I went to the Cambridge Dictionary and saw that these nouns can be countable and uncountable. I didn't get it again.

Can you explain to me please in which cases nouns like: soup, ice cream, chocolate might be countable?

If you don't mind correct me please, if I wrote something wrong (I mean grammatical). And thank you in advance.

Can I say? I ate some apple. I ate some apple pie. or it should be I ate an apple. I ate an apple pie.

Thanks

When to use the s in names: Nouns in English, difference between Countables and Uncountables

ball - C pollution – UC news – UC sheep – C homework – UC sugar - UC sofa – C cheese – C person – C bread – C bottle – Chair – UC coffee – UC magazine – C advice - UC furniture – UC trip – C email – UC information – UC potato - C

For example, I have seen sentences like “she met some guy there”, “we went to some bar last night”. Why is the singular form used here and is it grammatically correct?

Meaning, should you say "the coronavirus" instead of just "coronavirus", because I am almost certain that it is the former. I've been noticing a lot of people using the latter, and for some reason that really bugs me.

I wonder how to simplify the title. How about "Will you still regard some countable nouns as uncountable nouns occasionally nowadays? Or the converse problem too."?

Ever wonder what the difference is between a countable and uncountable noun in English?

Wonder no more. I just wrote a blog post about what these nouns are and how you can test to see whether a noun is countable or not.

Check it out here!

After such great feedback about the game I posted last week, I thought I'd share my newest game.

Github link is here.

Hope it comes in useful!

A million thoughts raced through my head. Lolo was in America? Why was Lolo in America? Who did he kill? Did he go to prison?

Why difference is countable in this sentence:

Many nouns can be used as countable or uncountable nouns, usually with a difference in meaning.

Did you hear a noise just now?

I can't work here. There's too much noise.

I guess the first noise mean a particular noise, like a noise made by traffic, etc., the second noise means every noise around you. If that's the case, why not use noises instead?

I think the sentences in the following pairs have the same meanings, but why the ones on the left are countable, the ones on the right aren't:

What a beautiful view! = What beautiful scenery!

It was a good suggestion. = It was good advice.

Why a hair can mean one single hair, but a rice can't mean one single grain of rice?

Why headache is countable?

ex. I have got a headache.

The phrase "The simplest of advice helped me" is rubbing me the wrong way and I'm trying to put my finger on why. Or am I in that zone where I've read it too many times and it looks weird to me when really it's OK to say it that way.

(I realize "the simplest advice" is a cleaner way to say it, I'm just trying to suss out the rules for including "of.")

Something I see on Reddit every day. It's getting out of hand.

OK. I know if you're aking a question you use this rule:

HOW MANY? ----------> FOR COUNTABLE NOUNS

HOW MUCH? ----------> FOR UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

OK. So I can say : how many books do you have in the library? That is for COUNTABLE NOUNS.

OK. So I can say : how much sugar is in my coffee? That is for UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS.

OK. So why can't I use "Advice" (an uncountable noun) using HOW MUCH?

How much advice is there? Well, that doens't make sense. SO IS THIS RULE INCORRECT????!!!!!!!

You can't even use "LOVE" in a sentence with "HOW MUCH?"

PLEASE HELP!