Countable / Uncountable

Hi everyone,

It was one of the favorite subjects of my American teacher and we worked a lot on this: drills at every lesson!

NB: "drill" is a word which was used by another former English teacher of mine. As I don't find the meaning in my dictionary, I prefer to explain what I mean here: in his head, a drill is a type of exercise with many questions at high frequency in the session and also repeated at each session to get the "rule" or the list to enter in the brain and acquire a reflex.

~~

In English language, there are many words that don't accept a plural form, they are said uncountable.

What are uncountable nouns?
Uncountable nouns are materials, concepts, information, etc. which are not individual objects and can not be counted.
- uncountable nouns are always singular. Use the singular form of the verb with uncountable nouns.
- don't use "a", "one" or "a few" before an uncountable word but "some" (for several countable words, prefer "a few" to "some").
- never use many but much and, of course, never a number: one, two, three... never "a few" or "several" and the particles refering to quantities
- "some" is also used with countable nouns for an unknown quantity but the word is at the plural then: don't confuse
- "a lot of" may be used with uncountables.
- if you want to speak about a specific uncountable word, don't say "a": you're obliged to say "a piece of..."
There are forms that express countable concepts: these measurements or containers are countable
- some uncountable nouns in English are countable in other languages. This can be confusing! Easy to confuse uncountable nouns!


A few such uncountable nouns:
(especially different types of food)
accommodation
advice
baggage
behavior
bread
business
cash
cheese
equipment
furniture
garbage
homework
information
knowledge
luggage
money
news
pasta
permission
progress
research
rubbish
scenery
traffic
travel
understanding
water
weather
wood
work
plural ones:
- clothes, contents, goods, means, tidings, outskirts, jeans, surroundings
Guides for categories of uncountables:
- Things made up of small pieces
- Wholes composed of individual parts
- Fields of study and professional fields
- Abstract ideas
- Liquids
- gases
- Solids, minerals, and elements
- Sports and Recreational Activities
- Natural Phenomena
- Medical Conditions
- Scientific processes and procedures

counter-examples:
people, police, etc. collective words are not uncountable words: they are plural... (NB: Americans tend to use collective nouns as singular nouns)
fish, sheep, etc. are not uncountable words.

Examples:
There's some water in that pitcher
There's some cold beer in the fridge

As already said, use measurements, containers, quantity expressions to get countable objects:
accommodation - a place to stay
advice - a piece of advice
baggage - a piece of baggage
bread - a slice of bread, a loaf of bread
butter - a bar of butter
cheese - a slice, a chunk, a piece of cheese
equipment - a piece of equipment
furniture - a piece of furniture
garbage - a piece of garbage
information - a piece of information
ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard - a bottle of, a tube of ketchup, etc.
knowledge - a fact
(liquids: water, beer, wine, etc. - a glass, a bottle, a jug of water, etc.)
luggage - a piece of luggage, a bag, a suitcase
mayonnaise - a bottle of, a tube of ketchup, etc.
meat - a piece, a slice, a pound of meat
money - a note, a coin
mustard - a bottle of, a tube of ketchup, etc.
news - a piece of news
pasta - a plate of pasta, a serving of pasta
research - a piece of research, a research project
(sauce: ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard - a bottle of, a tube of ketchup, etc.)
travel - a journey, a trip
water - a glass of water
work - a job, a position


Mistakes are often made by intermediate level French people, please take care of such words!


Links:
- EnglishMistakesWelcome.com
- ESL Monster
- Scribd (Spanish)
- James Abela ELT (PDF) very long list
- About.com