Uncountable English Nouns to Count Food - Basic English Grammar

hi everybody my name is Alisha today I'm

going to talk about some counter words that we can use to talk about food so in

previous lessons of this whiteboard series we've talked about uncountable

and countable nouns some words that we use to talk about food are what's called

uncountable nouns they're called uncountable nouns meaning we cannot say

one two or three directly before the noun directly before the uncountable

noun instead we count these uncountable nouns with counter words so today I'm

going to introduce a few common words that we use to count

uncountable food now so let's take a look at a few examples okay

the first counter word I want to talk about is slice so we use most of these

counter words for example slice followed by up so slice of plus the noun so let's

look at some examples with slice we can use pizza I have an image here slice of

pizza slice of cake slice of bread slice of fruit fruit keep in mind though we

use fruit for things we can cut into maybe a shape like this or into a thin

piece of fruit so we would not use for example berries with the word slice we

would use for example melon or orange something we can divide by cutting is

something we use the word slice with so slice is one that we can use with these

verbs or sorry so slice is one word that we can use with these uncountable nouns

for example we can also use the word piece so piece is a very very general

word that we can apply to many different foods because piece refers to a part of

something so if you imagine a large a large single item like a chicken or

turkey or maybe steak a smaller part of that we can call a piece so we use the

word piece we can use it with pizza or cake as we did with slice here but pizza

a piece of pizza is a part of a larger item part of a larger pizza

same thing with cake so we can use slice and piece with either cake or pizza and

there are some other words we can use too so let me say that again so we can

use slice or piece with both pizza and cake and there are some other cases some

other nouns where we can use both words as well so we can use it for like I said

meat because we often need to break meat into smaller parts to eat it so piece we

can use with these larger items that we make into smaller parts okay another one

you might hear is stick stick we use stick with butter so one piece of butter

doesn't quite have the same meaning as one stick of butter so butter is often

sold in sticks you might also hear stick used for instant coffee a stick of

instant coffee or a stick of instant something else so dried ingredients are

often sold in sticks you might hear a stick of coffee or

maybe there's an ingredient in your country that is sold in sticks so we use

stick to talk about a packet of dried ingredient that's in a long shape we

also use stick for butter okay next one is Bowl bowl so foods that are served in

a bowl typically we can use the word Bowl to talk about those serving sizes

so again we use Bowl plus of plus the noun so a bowl of rice a bowl of soup a

bowl of salad if you like you can change if you have a specific soup you want to

talk about you can put the word before soup so for example a bowl of chicken

soup a bowl of turkey soup a bowl of minestrone soup you can include the word

to make the soup specific if you like okay next one jar so a jar is usually a

glass container with a lid that you can screw twist the top of so we use jar for

Jam or jellies for honey for mayonnaise for olives any item which is sold in a

jar in that item we can use the word jar to count that

one jar two jars for example next one is a bit special the word loaf so loaf we

used to count bread you'll remember up here I said slice of bread slice of

bread is used for a a piece a part of bread

however loaf is used to talk about the entire bread uncut

so bread that has not been touched a bread that has not been changed at all

that's a loaf of bread a loaf of bread so we use the word loaf to talk about

bread okay on to the other side the next word is head a head of something we use

this for some vegetables like lettuce cabbage broccoli cauliflower kind of you

can look at it in this sort of shape it has this very round side and then maybe

there are some leaves or there like with cauliflower some flowers at the edge the

other edge so we use the word head to talk about this so a head of lettuce or

a head of cabbage a head of cauliflower we can also to talk about smaller sizes

you can say half a head of cauliflower half a head of lettuce as well so we use

head to count this kind of shape usually this is a vegetable okay next one is box

so items which are sold in boxes for example pasta or cookies we can use box

to talk about those another one is bag we can use bag to talk about items like

flour sugar may be baking related items a bag of flour a bag of sugar kind of

has this image a bag of something another one we use bar we use a bar to

talk about candy a bar of candy we use bar for this you might also hear a

protein bars that could be something else we use it for but when counting we

use bar to talk about this shape of candy a bar of candy

ok another interesting word especially for cooking is pinch pinch

so to pinch means to put your fingers together in this motion when recipes say

add a pinch of salt or a pinch of pepper it means a very small

amount enough just enough that it can fit between your two fingers so a very

small amount we use this for salt or pepper herbs and spices a pinch of salt

a pinch of pepper means a very small amount just enough that can fit between

your fingers is a pinch a pinch of something

last one here also may be useful for cooking and eating and baking is packet

packet so if you've been to a fast food restaurant maybe you say you have seen

these small containers that are usually plastic which ketchup and mustard are

kept in so we use the word packet to talk about those you might also find

yeast packets if you like to bake so these are the small so these are small

packages that you can rip you can tear open and the ingredient comes out so we

use the word packet a packet of ketchup a packet of mustard we use packet to

talk about these so those are a couple of common counter words that we use to

talk about food I hope that these are helpful for you of course these are not

the only counter words we use for food but there are some of the most common

ones so if you have any questions or if there's another common counter word that

you'd like to know more about or you'd like to share please let us know in the

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