Uncountable and Countable Nouns

There are basically two kinds of nouns based on whether they are quantifiable or not. they are Countable and Uncountable nouns.

 

Countable Nouns

Things or nouns whose quantity can be counted in numbers are countable nouns.

Examples of such are,

• Most physical and solid things like book, football, laptop, pen, stone, bottle, etc.
• Grouping words like pair, bunch, team, club, herd, school, etc.
• Words referring to small units of any noun such as piece, member, unit, part, organ, cell, ions, etc.

Uncountable Nouns

These are nouns which can not be expressed in terms of numbers unlike their counterparts, i.e. countable nouns.

For example, we can answer how many pens are there? But, it is inappropriate to ask how many waters are there? (we can’t place ‘s’ after any uncountable nouns neither can we put articles like ‘a’ and ‘an’ in front of them.)

So, it’s incorrect to write:

* There is an equipment in my office. Or,

* I have a lot of information’s’ about the US.

However, phrases like ‘piece’, ‘bottle’, ‘glass’, etc. can be used to denote the number of uncountable nouns.

For example,

• There are lots of pieces of equipment out there.
• It is a useful piece of information.
• There is a bottle of milk inside the freezer.

Talking about using the appropriate grammar, here is a table to help you.

{Please, note that the ‘……..’ refers to the respective nouns from the headings of the table.}