countable and uncountable nouns

COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

English nouns are often described as "countable" or "uncountable".

- COUNTABLE NOUNS :

Countable nouns are easy to recognize.

They are things that we can count.

For example: dog. We can count dogs, we can have one, two, three or more dogs.

Some more countable nouns:
pen, cat, animal, man, person, bottle, box, litre, coin, note, dollar , cup, plate, fork , table, chair, suitcase, bag

Can be singular or plural :

My dog is playing.
My dogs are hungry.

We can use the indefinite article a/an :

A dog is an animal.

When a countable noun is singular, we must use a word like: a/the/my/this.

Where is my bottle? (not Where is bottle?)

We can use some and any too with countable nouns, and a few and many.

- UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS :

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we can't divide into separate elements.

We can't "count" them. For example: milk. We can't count milk, we only can count bottles of milk, litres, but not milk itself.

Some more uncountable nouns:

music, art, love, happiness, advice, information, news , furniture, luggage, rice, sugar, butter, water , electricity, gas, power, money, currency

We usually treat uncountable nouns as singular. We use a singular verb.

For example:

- This news is very important.

We don't usually use the indefinite article a/an with uncountable nouns. We cannot say "an information" or "a music". But we can say a something of:

- a piece of news

We can use some and any.

- I've got some money.

- Have you got any rice?

And we can use too a little and much.

CREDITS: CREDITS:

http://www.uv.mx/tecaprendizaje/material/cursoenlinea/Mary/Grammar/Countable%20and%20Unc%20Nouns/Countable%20and%20uncountable/countable_and_uncountable_nouns.htm

http://personales.ya.com/mjandres/archivos/Grammar4.pdf

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns-un-countable.htm

http://www.foodpoisonblog.com/milk.gif