Page 176 - DENG401_Advance Communication Skills

Unit 9: Basic Grammar

Notes
Example: "milk".

We can count "bottles of milk" or "litres of milk", but we cannot count
"milk" itself.
Here are some more examples of uncountable nouns:

1. music, art, love, happiness
2. advice, information, news
3. furniture, luggage

4. rice, sugar, butter, water
5. electricity, gas, power
6. money, currency

We usually treat uncountable nouns as singular. We use a singular verb.

Examples: 1. This news is very important.
2. Your luggage looks heavy.
We do not usually use the indefinite article a/an with uncountable nouns. We cannot say "an
information" or "a music". But we can say a something of:

Examples: 1. a piece of news
2. a bottle of water

3. a grain of rice
We can use some and any with uncountable nouns:

Examples: 1. I've got some money.
2. Have you got any rice?

We can use a little and much with uncountable nouns:

Examples: 1. I've got a little money.
2. I haven't got much rice.

Uncountable nouns are also called "mass nouns".
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