Comments on: Uncountable

By: Gina

Gina — Sun, 18 May 2014 01:07:00 +0000

My boyfriend is Chinese and he has learned to just accept things as they are. When we were in China and I would ask him why Chinese people do things certain ways he would reply “because China…no why”. So my response to such questions is “because English”. This way he knows its just the way things are if it makes sense or not.

By: Virginia Anderson

Virginia Anderson — Sat, 17 May 2014 21:21:00 +0000

In reply to BB. haha yeah English is a pretty screwed UP language XD

By: dewaanifordrama

dewaanifordrama — Thu, 15 May 2014 07:05:00 +0000

In reply to Ann. Yup, those are called quantifiers. There are many nouns though that are both count and non-count. For example, glass and glasses. They are both made from the same substance, but the context is different, which makes one a non-count noun and one a count noun.

By: Hua Alderson

Hua Alderson — Thu, 15 May 2014 00:02:00 +0000

LOL! He has a point!

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 14 May 2014 12:08:00 +0000

As a previous post mentioned, we use non-count nouns to represent what we conceive as “substances,” and count nouns to refer to what we perceive as individual “objects.”

“He drinks coffee.” = He habitually consumes amounts of a ubiquitous substance.

“He brought her a coffee.” = He brought her an amount commonly associated with (container of) a substance.

The latter usage refers to a common unit e.g. cup, bottle, can.

I find the issue with the animals interesting, in that he properly applied a rule he had learned or inferred regarding countability.

I dont believe we use non-count nouns (not to be confused with words whose s/pl are the same [moose]) to refer to animals; I believe it’s used only to refer to their meat.

He’s done a great job learning English; I hope to achieve such a high level in his native language soon!

By: Ann

Ann — Wed, 14 May 2014 05:54:00 +0000

In reply to dewaanifordrama. Also, the two regular coffees are shorthand for two cups of coffee. Non-count nouns can often be broken up like that; grains of rice, pieces of chocolate.

By: Lefay De Lioncourt

Lefay De Lioncourt — Wed, 14 May 2014 04:32:00 +0000

It is quite hard… English is my second language and even though I might be good at it, I am still learning and of course there are words that have no sense! But then a lot people say the same about Spanish, how words have genre, people don’t get it but I don’t blame them… So I guess all languages have the charm where some rules have no sense at all!

By: kero

kero — Tue, 13 May 2014 20:22:00 +0000

And if it’s goose/geese then why isn’t it moose/meese?! =)

By: Magdalena Kastelik

Magdalena Kastelik — Tue, 13 May 2014 05:21:00 +0000

My students always frown when they learn that “money” is uncountable 😉 Every single person reacts in the same way “What!?! What does it mean you CANNOT count money?!?!” 🙂 And I always come up with the same explanation… “Have you ever paid “fifty moneys” for something? 🙂 Only then do they realize the difference between MONEY and actual currencies 🙂 (but then, when it comes to doing exercises, they still go “money are…” 😉 but I guess it just comes naturally as it’s something they translate literally from Polish (here, this word has its plural form) 🙂

By: Claudia Carvalho

Claudia Carvalho — Tue, 13 May 2014 00:38:00 +0000

I’m Portuguese and I started learning English at school, when I was
around 9 years old and then French at 11 years old. I always found that I
had no problems learning English, but even though French is a lot
similar to my language, it was so much harder for me to remember certain
things and I had no idea why. I almost never studied for English tests
but for French I always had to try twice as hard. Then I realized what
it was. Exposure. I was exposed to the English language every single
day. A lot of the shows or movies I watched on TV were American or
British. There are no voice overs. Everything is subtitled. So, even
though I don’t actually remember learning certain rules, I instinctively
know when something is wrong, because I have heard it so many times
before. I had no exposure to French aside from classes. Now I can barely
say or write anything in French, while my English keeps on improving,
even without me trying.