Countable & Uncountable

Countable nouns

Countable nouns are nouns that we can count: car, house, book, etc. We can say one car, two cars, three cars, etc.

Countable nouns have singular and plural forms: a car/cars, a house/houses, a book/books, etc.

A/an + singular countable noun

We CANNOT use a singular countable noun without a determiner like a/an, the, my, your, her, etc.

• I have car. ❌
• I have a car. ✅
• When I was child. ❌
• When I was a child. ✅

Uncountable nouns

Uncountable nouns are nouns that we cannot count: money, milk, rain, etc. We cannot say one money, two moneys, etc. So, uncountable nouns do not have a plural form; they only have a singular form: money, milk, rain, etc.

Do NOT use a/an

We cannot use a/an + uncountable noun. A/an means ‘one’, and we cannot count uncountable nouns.

• I need a money. ❌
• I need money. ✅
• We need to buy a sugar. ❌
• We need to buy sugar. ✅

Types of words that are uncountable

Some types of words that are typically uncountable are:

Uncountable in English but not in other languages

Some nouns are uncountable in English, but they are countable in other languages. Some of them are advice, news (it ends in -s, but it’s a singular word), furniture, luggage, baggage, bread, cheese, toast, etc.

Nouns that can be countable and uncountable

Some nouns can be countable and uncountable because they can refer to a unit or to ‘mass’ or ‘material’. Compare:

• Yesterday I had two coffees. (= two cups of coffee)
• I love coffee. (= the liquid that we drink)
• I found one hair in my soup. (one single hair)
• She has beautiful hair. (= the mass of hair on her head)