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English Grammar 104 – Countable and Uncountable Nouns

English nouns can be ‘countable’ and so have both singular and plural forms, or they can be ‘uncountable’, in which case they only have the singular form.

Countable nouns are usually preceeded by an article or a quantity:

a cat – two cats

Uncountable nouns tend to have general or abstract meanings:

water
flour
salt
happiness

The verb conjugation is always singular with uncountable nouns:
Wine is good in Italy.

You can indicate the quantity of an uncountable noun like this:

Two glasses of wine
Three kilos of flour

Students often make mistakes with words which may be countable in their own language but which are uncountable in English, for example:

homework
hair
advice
information
money
news

My homework is easy.
Money is not important for him.

On the other hand, “people” is usually plural:

People in Japan are very hospitable.

Grammar
101 Subject Pronouns
102 Articles
103 Plurals
104 Countable or Uncountable?
105 Regular Present Tense
106 Irregular Present Tense
107 Present Continuous
108 Demonstratives
109 Question Words
110 There is/are

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