Count & Non-count Nouns

English Material

Nouns are a basic part of speech in a language. Nouns are persons, places, things, ideas, or concepts. Nouns may function as the subject of a sentence, as the object of a verb, or as the object of prepositions.

There are four types of nouns:

1.   Common nouns are words for general people, places, or things.

book, remote control, window, cafeteria, teller, teacher, street, car, police officer

2.   Proper nouns are names of specific people, places, or things. They always begin with a capital letter.

Veronica, Prof. Lenore Sinclair, Chile, Seoul, Disneyland, the New York Times, Boardwalk Empire, Jennifer Lopez, the Braden’s  [notice that when the is used with a proper noun, it is usually in the lower case (not capitalized)]

3.  Collective nouns are singular words that refer to groups of people or animals. They are either common or proper.

team, family, committee, congress, herd (of cows), the Rodriguez family, the New York Yankees

4. Abstract nouns are words for ideas or concepts. We know they exist, but we can’t use our senses (touch, hearing, sight, taste, smell) to find them.

love, hate, honesty, faith, freedom, patience, joy, responsibility, fidelity, dislike, loyalty

Count Nouns

Count (or countable) nouns are simple to count. They may be singular or plural. For singular count nouns, use a, an, the, or one. For plural count nouns, use a number, the article the, or no article. You may also use quantity words (a lot, a little, some, many). Never use a or an with a plural noun.

Singular                                                            Plural

a cat                                                                 cats

an orange                                                         two oranges

one soldier                                                       15 soldiers

the recipe                                                         the recipes

Non-Count Nouns

Non-count nouns are things that we generally do not count. Non-count nouns are always singular. Do not use an article with count nouns. You may use quantity words (a lot, a little, and especially some). Certain categories of nouns are usually non-count.

Abstract ideas and feelings

advice	beauty	faith	freedom	happiness	hate	honesty
information	intelligence	joy	love	luck	news	vocabulary	work

School subjects
biology	criminal	justice	economics	English	gymnastics	mathematics
physics	psychology	Spanish	statistics	wellness	writing

Terms composed of tiny parts

coffee	flour	jewelry	hair	money	pepper
rice	salt	sand	sugar	tea

Collective nouns referring to things

clothing             food                  furniture	garbage	homework	jewelry	snow
mail (note: email is a count noun)	money	music	rain	traffic

Several food items

bread	butter	cheese	chocolate	fish	fruit	meat
pasta	soup	water

Minerals

copper                           gold                              iron                               silver                             steel tin

Liquids and gases
air	beer	milk	oil	oxygen
pollution	soup	water	wind

Measure words:

To talk about quantities with non-count nouns, use a/an/the + measure word + of + non-count noun.

a glass of milk	an ounce of gold	a bag of flour
a pound of coffee	four gallons of water	two pounds of sugar

Measure words include: bottle, bowl, box, bunch, can, container, cup, glass, jar, loaf, piece, pound, slice, tablespoon, teaspoon.