Countable vs Uncountable Nouns

 

How do we count milk, money, people, sugar, apples, etc? Today, we answer that question (and more) with our post on COUNTABLE and UNCOUNTABLE nouns. 

Food and drinks are used as topics for this grammar point. It might make you hungry or thirsty, but we can all understand these things, don't we? 

Milk is an uncountable noun.

• Three milks x
• Three litres or cartons of milk 👍

Uncountable nouns can only be counted when you include measurements (litres) or packaging (cartons).

Below is a chart courtesy of Sinua English with the basic rules for countable and uncountable nouns (right-click the image if it's too small).

Quantifiers

Countable Nouns.                                        Uncountable Nouns

a few, some, a lot of, many, several               a bit/little/pinch of, some, a lot of, much, a good amount of

Measurements | Uncountable/Countable Nouns

For measurements with packaging you can use compound adjectives. See the examples below.

• a five-litre jug of apple cider
• two one-kilogram bags of rice.

Notice there's no "S" at the end of compound adjectives. This is because they are describing type of packaging not the the quantity of packaging.

Exercise

Using the comments section or a piece of paper, write sentences describing the quantity of countable and uncountable nouns.

Example

Two kilograms of brown sugar

OR

A two-kilogram bag of brown sugar

1/   

2/ 

3/ 

4/ Write a short list of the food and drinks you have in your fridge and/or cupboards.

Online Exercises

Exam English | Uncountable Nouns

Perfect English Grammar | Countable or Uncountable?

Mass Nouns (Uncountable)| To Learn English