Quantifiers for Countable and Uncountable Nouns

A2–B1NounsJanuary 27, 2026

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hello everyone how do you feel about a

little challenge

let's see if you can choose the right

option

in the following sentences here is

sentence one

and the correct answer is

here is sentence two

[Music]

and the right answer is few

and here goes sentence three

and the answer is hair

if you have made a mistake or two don't

you worry

because now we will talk about the

grammar

that you need to know to avoid making

the same

mistakes again we'll talk about

countable and uncountable nouns and the

quantifiers

words expressing quantity that go with

them

first things first how do we know if a

noun

is countable whatever you can use

together with a number

is countable it's that easy for example

nine people six matches four books

six donuts four parrots two

wellies two buses fourteen

coins now let's go through the nouns

that are uncountable liquids

water juice

blood shampoo

solids cheese ice

bread paper

gases steam

pollution air

smoke particles

hair dust

rice salt

abstractions beauty

courage time

music natural phenomena

weather electricity

snow darkness

groups of similar objects baggage

luggage equipment

makeup jewelry once you know which nouns

are countable

and which are not follow these grammar

rules

a can be used with singular countable

nouns

but never with uncountable ones

essentially a means one

and as we already know we can use

numbers with countable

nouns only for example i have a friend

who sells shampoo not a shampoo

if uncountable nouns cannot be counted

they can never be plural either for

instance

could you give me several baskets for

the brand

not brands the verb that goes with the

countable nouns

as a subject can be either singular or

plural

but uncountable nouns as subjects

are used with singular verbs

compare money is important

dollars are green a dollar

is always a dollar when we talk about a

small quantity

we use few or a few for countable nouns

and little a little for uncountable

nouns

have a look for me too few songs and too

little music every day make a

boring life for big quantities we use

many for countable nouns and much

for uncountable nouns a lot of

can be used with both countable and

uncountable nouns

please note that much is usually used in

negative sentences and

questions but not in positive sentences

here are some examples many planes or

a lot of planes means a lot of pollution

not much pollution i didn't have much

time

or a lot of time to visit the museum

finally some and any can be used with

both

countable and uncountable nouns some

is used in positive sentences but

any in questions and negatives

consider these examples i need to buy

some salt

and some matches do you have any salt

do you have any matches

that's the gist of what grammar you need

to know to use

countable and uncountable nouns

correctly

still we need to talk about two more

things

the first one is tricky nouns

first of all here are some words that

may be countable in your

native language but which are definitely

uncountable

in english fruit evidence proof

money advice knowledge

news toast for example i don't

eat much fruit they have too

little evidence to convict you no

news is good news how many pieces of

toast would you like a little knowledge

is a dangerous thing

secondly there are some nouns that can

be both countable

and uncountable but with a change in

meaning

compare how many times a week do you

read

time meaning occasion how much time do

you spend

reading time meaning continuum

ooh there is a hair in my soup

hair meaning one separate thread

she has short blonde hair

hair meaning a collection of hairs

growing on one's head

the sausages in these hot dogs taste

strange sausages

meaning tube-like cases with meat do you

know how

sausage is made sausage

such as salami bologna etc

i'm afraid to go to the woods wood

meaning a forest how much wood

do we need for the fire wood as material

i want to buy a paper to read the latest

news

paper meaning and newspaper i need some

paper

for the project paper as material

have you fed the chickens chicken

meaning

a bird there is some chicken in the

fridge

help yourself chicken meaning meat

and now for the final point on our

agenda today

how to count uncountable things

there are a number of words that can

help us to do that

such as a glass of water a bowl of

rice a bottle of oil a cup of coffee

a bar of chocolate a slice of cheese

a carton of milk a loaf of bread a

kilogram of meat

a liter of lemonade etc there is another

word

that will come in handy a piece of

this phrase can help us count many

abstract things

a piece of advice a piece of furniture

a piece of equipment a piece of music

a piece of jewelry a piece of news a

piece of information

a piece of baggage or luggage

a piece of art a piece of literature

a piece of work well it's time for our

lesson to come to a close

i hope it was useful please remember to

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About this lesson

Learn how to use quantifiers correctly with countable and uncountable nouns in English.

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