VOA慢速英语--不可数名词

Understanding Noncount Nouns 不可数名词

Today we are going to talk about the difference between count and noncount nouns.

Most nouns in English can be counted. Think of the noun shirt, as in, “I bought a shirt.” If you have more than one shirt, you just add “s” to make it plural¹. 

"I bought 10 shirts."

But a shirt is part of a larger category: clothing. You can say “I bought three shirts” but you cannot say, “I bought three clothings.” Clothing is a noncount noun. You cannot use a, an, or a number before a noncount noun.

Grammatically, a noncount noun is always singular, even if it refers to multiple items like furniture, luggage, or equipment.

A count noun in your native language might be a noncount noun in English. For example, the Spanish translation for homework is a count noun. But homework is a noncount noun in English. It would sound strange to say, “I had three homeworks.” You could say, “I had a lot of homework.”

You can also could say, “I had three homework assignments.” In this example, homework is used as an adjective. It describes assignment. You can count assignments, but you cannot count homework.

There is no perfect rule to determine if a noun is count or noncount. Fortunately, most noncount nouns fall into a few categories.

Groups of similar things

Noncount nouns often refer to groups of similar objects. Furniture, for example, is a noncount noun. Furniture is a collection of similar countable² items like chairs, sofas, tables, shelves, beds and so on.

Luggage is also a noncount noun. You can count bags, packages, and backpacks, but you cannot count luggage. Other noncount nouns that refer to groups of similar things include equipment, food, garbage, mail, money and vocabulary.

Abstractions

Abstract words are noncount. These are words that refer to ideas or qualities instead of physical objects or events. Abstractions are usually things that you cannot see: They only exist in the mind. For example: love, hate, information, news, peace, music and art. There are tens of thousands of abstract words.

Other types of noncount nouns

It is logical that particles -- things that come in very small pieces -- are noncount nouns. It would be difficult to count rice, corn, salt, sugar and dust.

The names of academic fields of study are noncount. Even though physics, economics, and mathematics all end with an s, they are singular noncount nouns. For example, “Physics is difficult.”

Words related to nature and weather are often noncount, such as rain, wind, snow, lightning, fire and air.

Words with count and noncount meaning

A few words can be used as count and noncount nouns. But the meaning changes a little bit. Let’s look at the word glass. As a noncount noun, glass refers to the clear material used to make windows. For example, “The lamp was made of glass.”

As a count noun, glass refers to a drinking container made of glass, as in “Could you bring me a glass of water?”

The plural glasses has two meanings. It could refer to more than one drinking container. “Please wash the glasses.”

Glasses could also refer to spectacles, a pair of lenses used to correct vision. “I have been wearing glasses since I was a teenager.”

Coffee, along with other drinks, has a count and noncount meaning. “Coffee is grown in Colombia” refers to coffee as an agricultural product. “I’ll have a coffee” refers to a single cup of coffee.

Making Noncount Nouns into Count Nouns

There are a few very important words that make it possible to count noncount nouns. Many food words are noncount nouns. But if you are cooking, you need to measure specific amounts of food.

A recipe for cookies might call for “2 cups of sugar, a half-pound of butter, and 1 teaspoon³ of vanilla⁴." Pound, cup and teaspoon are examples of measure words that you can use to make noncount nouns countable.

One of the most useful of these measure words is piece. You cannot count information but you can count a piece of information. Piece is a very useful word because it can be used with both count and noncount nouns. For example, you can have two pieces of pie or three pieces of information. Listen to this song by Paul Young.

Every time you go away

You take a piece of me with you.

Some of these measure words have poetic⁵ qualities to them, such as: a grain of sand, a speck⁶ of dust, a bolt of lightning, a flake⁷ of snow, and a breath of air.

Common mistakes

Let’s look at some common mistakes with noncount nouns.

Traffic might seem like a count noun. After all, it refers to a lot of cars. But traffic is a noncount noun in English. Vocabulary, hardware, information, music, and advice are noncount nouns that English learners often confuse for count nouns.

And let us not forget the most important noncount noun of all: grammar. You cannot count grammar. But you can count grammar rules.

Come on come on come on come on and

Take it!

Take another little piece of heart now baby

Break it?

Break another little piece of my heart I know you will

Have a

Have another little piece of my heart now baby

Adam Brock wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Parts of the report were based on "Understanding and Using English Grammar," by Betty Azar. Jill Robbins and Kathleen Struck were the editors.

Now it’s your turn. If you send us your mailing address in the comments, we will send you a 2016 VOA Calendar. We will not publish your address in the comments, of course. Feel free to add a comment, we will publish that without the address.

Words in This Story

noncount nouns - n.  a noun (such as “sand” or “butter”) that refers to something that cannot be counted

luggage - n. the bags and suitcases that a person carries when traveling

garbage - n. things that are no longer useful or wanted and that have been thrown out

abstract - adj. relating to or involving general ideas or qualities rather than specific people, objects, or actions

spectacle - n. (old-fashioned) eyeglasses

bolt - n. a bright line of light that appears in the sky during a storm as in a flash of lightning

flake  - n. a small, thin piece of something

speck - n. a very small piece or spot

1 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

2 countable   

adj.可数的，可以计算的

参考例句：

• The word "person" is a countable noun.person这个词是个可数名词。
• Countable nouns have singular and plural forms.可数名词有单数和复数之分。

3 teaspoon   

n.茶匙

参考例句：

• Add one teaspoon of sugar.加一小茶匙糖。
• I need a teaspoon to stir my tea.我需要一把茶匙搅一搅茶。

4 vanilla   

n.香子兰，香草

参考例句：

• He used to love milk flavoured with vanilla.他过去常爱喝带香草味的牛奶。
• I added a dollop of vanilla ice-cream to the pie.我在馅饼里加了一块香草冰激凌。

5 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

6 speck   

n.微粒，小污点，小斑点

参考例句：

• I have not a speck of interest in it.我对它没有任何兴趣。
• The sky is clear and bright without a speck of cloud.天空晴朗，一星星云彩也没有。

7 flake   

v.使成薄片；雪片般落下；n.薄片

参考例句：

• Drain the salmon,discard the skin,crush the bones and flake the salmon with a fork.将鲑鱼沥干，去表皮，粉碎鱼骨并用餐叉子将鱼肉切成小薄片状。
• The paint's beginning to flake.油漆开始剥落了。