Countable and Uncountable Nouns - The Learning Art
Countable and Uncountable Nouns
Nouns are of two types either countable or uncountable, their difference and uses we will study in this lesson.
Countable Nouns
Countable nouns are those nouns which are countable in numbers. They have either a singular form or a plural.
For Example
a ship, an apple, a jug, five glasses, three parrots, ten oranges etc
Examples
- I have a laptop at my home.
- I have three daughters and a son.
- Three pets are fighting together.
- Get me a glass please.
Uncountable Nouns
Uncountable nouns are those nouns which are not countable in numbers. Uncountable nouns are sometimes abstract nouns which are not possible to count (happiness, information, sleep, mercy) or any physical noun which are too small or amorphous to be counted (sugar, rice, butter, water). Uncountable nouns are used with a singular verb. They usually don't have a plural form.
For Example
furniture, soup, ice-cream, air, advice, confidence, confusion, anger, fear, love, headache etc.
These nouns are not used with indefinite articles like a, an. Instead they are used with expressions like
a lot of
much
a bit
a great deal of
or used with exact measurement like
a cup of
a bag of
1 kg of
1L of
a handful of etc
For asking about the quantity of an uncountable noun, we use 'how much'.
Examples
- I have a lot of pain in my leg today.
- Please add some sugar in my tea
- How much sugar do you need?
- I would like to have a cup of coffee.
- Put some water in the jug.
Types of Noun
1) Common Nouns
2) Proper Nouns