English Grammar Tricks - Countable & Uncountable Nouns

Hi, my name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson I'm going to show you some

easy tricks, when using countable and uncountable nouns, okay? So first

let's just do a quick review. What is a noun? In English, a noun, usually

refers to a person, place, or a thing.

Nouns can actually be classified in many, many different ways. We have

proper nouns and common nouns and so on. But for the purpose of this

lesson, we're going to focus on one way of classifying nouns, which is

whether we can count them or not.

Now that can cause a little bit of confusion, because sometimes you're not

sure if a nouns is something you can count or not. The ones you can count

are usually pretty obvious, the ones that we call "non-count" or

"uncountable nouns" are not so obvious, and therefore they cause a little

bit of confusion for English learners.

So I'm going to show you a way that you can distinguish between them, and

also a way that you can use them correctly afterwards in sentences, okay?

So let's look at the board. Ffirst of all, let's look at some examples

of countable nouns. Countable nouns are things you can count, like:

"chair/chairs", "table/tables", "books", "shops", "markers",

"shirts", okay? They can be singular or plural, all right?

And usually the plural form has an "s", so those are the countable nouns.

The uncountable nouns or the non-count nouns are ones which only have

the singular form. They don't have a separate plural form, okay?

So we can't say "sugar" and "sugars". We can only say "sugar", "furniture"

"equipment", "information", "advice", or "rain". So these are examples of

non-count nouns. So what causes confusion for people is to know when do

I say "many"? Can I say "many information"? "Much information"?

"Much markers"? "Many markers"?

This causes a lot of confusion for a lot of students, so I'm going to try to show

you a little trick that will help you to know when to say "many" - "much"

or what you can do if you don't want to make a mistake at all. So let's

look at what we can use first with the "countable nouns".

With countable nouns -- only -- you can use "a." Like you can say "a chair",

"a book". You can say "many shops", "many shirts", "many shops", "many

shirts". You can say "few tables" or "a few chairs." Any of these you can

use only with countable nouns.

Let's look on the other side here. These you can only use with the

uncountable nouns. For example, "much" -- "much information", "little

information", "a little bit of sugar". These three which I've listed here

under the "non-count", you can only use with the uncountable nouns.

Some people find that very confusing. So here's the trick! The trick is you

don't have to use this or this. If you use anything from this column, you

could actually use them for the countable nouns and the uncountable

nouns and you'll be grammatically perfect. So, if you're not 100% sure what

you can do? Be safe! Use something from here and it works for the

countable nouns and the uncountable nouns.

Let's see what those words are. We can say "the" -- "the information", "the

book". It works. "Some equipment", "some shirts" -- it works for both.

"I don't have any sugar in the house." or "I don't have any tables."

"No, there is no equipment at the office." "There are no books on the table."

It works for both countable and non-countable.

We can say, "I have a lot of markers of different colors." Or "I have a lot

of advice for you." Again, countable or uncountable. "We have lots of

chairs in the classroom." "We have lots of furniture in the shop."

"Enough" can also be used, or the last one, "plenty of."

"We have plenty of sugar. Don't worry." "We have plenty of books in the

library." So, if you're not sure which adjective or article to use with the

countable and non-countable nouns, use something from this column and

you'll always be right, okay?

So if you want to practice this, there are two things you can do. First, you

can go to our website, engvid.com, and do a quiz on this particular topic.

You could also go to the Resources section of the same website, engvid.com.

There you'll find a list of the countable and non-countable nouns, and

some of these terms, everything listed for you. You can download that for

your reference, okay? So good luck with your English, and thanks very much for

watching. Bye for now.

Learn English for free www.engvid.com