Tip 11
Countable and uncountable nouns: why they’re important
In tip 7 – I discussed the article -a\an- and the article -the- and explained how the article -a\an- should be used before non-specific singular nouns. for example:
a\an
Give me a pen. (give me a pen, any pen, not a specific pen, one pen of many pens).
From the example above, you can see that the article –a\an- refers to -one- separate unit of something – is this true for all nouns? What happens when we cannot count the noun?
In order to understand the differences, try to translate the following sentences:
- תן לי אוכל
- תעביר לי כיסא
- תן לי חלב
We must not get things mixed up and translate the sentences like this:
Give me a food
Give me chair
Give me a milk
The correct translation is:
Give me some food
Give me a chair
Give me some milk
Why? In fact, in English nouns are divided into 2 categories:
Countable nouns, i.e. nouns that can be counted in units (for example: chairs).
Uncountable nouns, which cannot be counted in units and can only be estimated in quantity.
Since it is possible to define uncountable nouns only by quantity and not by number, naturally the labels that are placed before them describe a quantity and not a number – for example the quantifier some or a little.
Another important point to remember is that in English there is a much greater tendency to use adjectives before nouns in general, unlike in some languages. Therefore, we naturally wrote down the sentence:
– Give me some milk (and not- “give me milk”)
One might argue and claim that you can actually count milk, or food.
If you think about it a little further, you will find that it is always a unit of such materials/resources. For example:
–some milk-
– A glass of milk \ a carton of milk (a separate countable unit of milk)
–some food-
– A banana\ an apple\ a steak. (a separate countable unit of food)
-some sand-
– a bag of sand \ a sack of sand. (a separate countable unit of sand)
-some water-
– a glass of water \ a bottle of water. (a separate countable unit of water)
In conclusion, remember:
When we want to relate to uncountable nouns that describe resources/materials such as water, time, money, milk, sand, effort, we will always use quantifiers that relate to quantity such as: some, any, a little, a lot, much.
Under no circumstances would we use the article a\an which describes a countable unit of something for this kind of nouns.
Try to notice how native English speakers describe countable and uncountable nouns whenever you read a book or watch TV. Before you know it – the difference will become very clear and you will start using these structures with ease and precision.
