What are Countable and uncountable nouns?

It’s important to distinguish between countable and uncountable nouns to speak correct English. Let’ s know basic rules about countable and uncountable nouns.

What are Countable nouns?

Countable nouns are for things we can count using numbers. They have a singular and a plural form. The singular form can use the determiner “a” or “an”.

Singular and plural

Countable nouns have both singular and plural forms.

Singular Noun (Only one in number)	Plural Noun (More than one)
A Cap	2 Caps
A Pen	5 pens
A Dog	Dogs or Many dogs or 2 dogs
An electricity board	Many electricity boards
An Idea	Many Ideas

For Example:

This is a big House.

I have a pair of shoes.

Mrs. Smith gave me an Idea to get good marks.

Or

Mrs. Smith gave me one idea to get good marks.

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 What are Uncountable Nouns?

Uncountable nouns are the nouns which are the things that we cannot count with numbers.

They include:

Physical things that are too small or amorphous to count such as water, milk, coffee, air, etc.

Abstract things like beauty, time, anger, love, safety, research, evidence, softness, happiness, fear, knowledge.

Most of the people make mistakes to understand that even though uncountable nouns are not individual objects, most of the time, they are singular but then also we do not use ‘a’ or ‘an’ for the uncountable nouns.

uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot “count” them.

For example, we cannot count “milk”.

We can count “bottles of milk” or “liters of milk”, but we cannot count “milk” itself.

Here are some more uncountable nouns:

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

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Sometimes we use singular or plural form of the uncountable noun on the basis of word’s meaning

Although there is no singular or plural form of an uncountable noun on the basis of word’s meaning we use them.

For example:

Uncountable form:

Would you like to some coffee? (Here coffee is a drink and we can’t count it.)

Countable form:

I need a coffee (Here the meaning of a coffee is a cup of coffee)

When we add a fixed physical quantity measure (kilograms, litters, meter, etc) to certain uncountable nouns, they become countable.

Example:

A  bottle/litter of milk. (here milk is still uncountable but when we add bottle or litter, it becomes countable because now we can count.

We should always remember that we can’t say that this is one water or two water’. We say, ‘A bottle of water’, ‘these are two bottles’ or ‘these three bottles’ because we can’t count water but when we add a fixed physical quantity measure then we can say, ‘this is a glass of water or a bottle of water.

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Always remember:

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

For example:

• This news is very important.
• Your luggage looks heavy.

We do not 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
• a bottle of water
• a grain of rice

We can use some and any with uncountable nouns:

• I’ve got some money.
• Have you got any rice?

We can use a little and much with uncountable nouns:

• I’ve got a little money.
• I haven’t got much rice.

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To show the uncountable quantity and for the expression, we use these words mentioned below:

Some

I need some money to buy the scooter.

A lot of

There are a lot of problems I this system.

Plenty of

I want plenty of time to complete my task.

A little bit

I need a little bit of your help in my presentation.

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There is some noun that top the list of being the most commonly mistaken ones.

Hair or hairs?

 When we talk about hair in general, they are considered uncountable (and singular) as no one can count all of them.

Jolly’s hair is very beautiful.

But when we talk about individual strands of hair, it’s considered countable.

I found a hair/ a strand of hair in my food.

I pulled out or cut my two white hairs from my head.

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Money

As we know currency is countable and thus it has both singular and plural forms-Rupee- rupees, dollar- dollars, euro-euros. etc.

I have rupees 140.

One the other hand, money is always uncountable and thus, always singular.

I need 200 money.  

I need some money or I need rupees 200.

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Time

The word time has both countable and uncountable uses.

When we talk about the amount of time (number of hours/days etc.) required to complete something, time is usually uncountable.

• How much time do we need to paint the walls? (NOT How many time do we need…?)
• We took quite some time to put the child to bed.
• Hurry up – we haven’t got enough time.
• The project was a complete waste of time and money.

In expressions like a long time or a short time, the word time is used as a countable noun.

• I took a long time to proofread the work.

When we talk about clock times, time is countable.

• Five o’clock would be a great time to start.
• I called him at various times yesterday.

When time is used without a preposition

Prepositions are often dropped before common expressions with time.

• I’m busy right now. Can you come another time? (More natural than ‘Can you come at another time?’)
• What time does the train leave? (More natural than ‘At what time does the train leave?’)
• You can’t-fool me this time.

On time and in time

On time means ‘at the planned time’. In time means ‘with enough time to spare.’

• It is important that the meeting starts on time.
• She would have died if they hadn’t taken her to the hospital in time.

 When we talk about the amount of time ( we may think that it is easy to count time but actually we only count  hours/ minutes/ days etc we can’t count the moment of time we spend.)

Required to complete something. Time is usually uncountable.

‘’I need some more time to complete the file’’.

In a certain expression, the world time is used as a countable noun.

‘’It took a lot of time to complete the task’’.

Time becomes a countable entity when you use it to express repetition.

‘’I called you multiple of times but you didn’t listen’’.

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Some more rules

Much  and Many

Uncountable	Countable
I don’t have much time	How many chocolates do you have?
How much water can you drink?	How many bottles of water can you drink?

Few and fewer

We use few and fewer Only with countable nouns.

• Rohit gave me a few pens.
• My friend gave me a few suggestions for the constructions of my new house.

Little, less, least

We use little, less and least Only with countable nouns.

• Please put less sugar in my coffee.
• There are fewer buses on the road.
• There is little water kept in the jug.

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 Here are some more examples of countable and uncountable nouns:

Countable	Uncountable
dollar	money
song	music
suitcase	luggage
table	furniture
battery	electricity
bottle	wine
report	information
tip	advice
journey	travel
job	work
view	scenery

Here are some more examples:

• Don’t forget to buy a bag of rice when you go shopping.
• Can I have one cup of coffee and two cups of tea?
• The police found some items of clothing scattered around the floor.
• I need a truck that will take at least three pieces of furniture.
• You’d think a tablespoon of honey would be more than enough.

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Countable and Uncountable Nouns Exercises.

Is the underlined noun countable or uncountable?

1. The children played football.
2. The water bottle is empty.
3. The water is not clean.
4. I have long hair.
5. New Delhi is a big city.
6. My mother uses real butter in the cakes she bakes.
7. How many politicians does it take to pass a simple law?
8. Most kids like milk, but Joey hates it.
9. Most pottery is made of clay.
10. Michael can play several different musical instruments.
11. I was feeling so stressed that I ate an entire box of cookies.

Answers: 1 – countable, 2 – countable, 3 – uncountable, 4 – uncountable, 5 – countable, 6 – uncountable, 7 – countable, 8 – uncountable, 9 – uncountable, 10 – countable 11- Countable