Learning English

Countable and uncountable nouns

Some nouns can be counted, others can't. Now, what does that mean?

Think of a pen. The noun is pen, it has a plural form pens. If you want to say how many pens there are, you can just give a number as an answer:

"How many pens do you need for the class?" "Three or four should be enough."

You can imagine each of these nouns as individual items.

Now think of air? Firstly, notice that there is no article before it.

In its most common use, referring to what we breathe, it doesn't have a plural form either. Air is all around us, we don't see it as an individual item. We can't count air.

With nouns like pen and air, it's quite easy to understand if they are countable or uncountable. It's not always so easy though.

What about cheese?

Read the text and complete the activity

Cheese or cheeses?

Some nouns are usually uncountable, like furniture, accommodation, music and luggage. Some are usually countable, like chair, room, song and suitcase. Most nouns, though, can be either countable or uncountable. It doesn't depend on the noun but on the context, on how it is being viewed. 

For example, many nouns for food and drink items such as cheese, water, milk, rice, sugar and butter are normally regarded as uncountable nouns. Nouns like these however can also be countable, particularly when we think of them as different kinds or varieties of a product.

These days supermarkets sell many different cheeses.

Demarara, muscovado and caster are some of the different sugars we can use when baking.

Apple or apples?

Fruit and vegetables are normally regarded as being countable as we see them as individual items. 

We need to get some apples = Countable

If, however, someone has one apple and is offering you a piece of it, the noun apple becomes uncountable.

Would you like some apple? = Uncountable

Uncountable or countable: does it matter?

Yes. Countable and uncountable nouns have different grammar and are used with different words.

Countable nouns can have plural forms. They can be used with the indefinite article.

Uncountable nouns are normally used with singular forms and can't be used with the indefinite article.

Words and phrases that go with countable nouns

many, a few, a number (of), several, fewer

Words and phrases that go with uncountable nouns:

much, a little, a bit (of), a great deal of, less, amount

Words and phrases that go with both countable and uncountable nouns:

no, none, some, any, a lot (of), plenty (of), lots of, more, quantity

To do

Now why not try a little quiz? All you have to decide is if the noun is countable or uncountable. Easy?

Next

Now that we've refreshed countable and uncountable nouns, let's step deeper into the subject. The next activity explains abstract uncountable nouns and how they are used with the definite article. I bet you can hardly control your excitement! Oh look, there's one right there - excitement.