Noncount Nouns

 

Welcome to Our Online English Grammar HELP! Student Handbook!

While doing the exercises below, keep in mind that our grammar exercises are unique; they were created with you in mind. Each example that is used came from the writing of another learner of English.

Now let's continue with our Grammar HELP! Book's Chapter, Nouns and Pronouns. This unit today is for beginners and intermediate learners of English.

What's wrong with this sentence? 

They always try to give us good advices.

We will discuss this in the lesson below.

We begin with written activities.  You can print out the exercises below and complete them.

After you complete the activities and when you are ready to check your answers, go to our "Answer Key" shelf located in "Our Library".

In our Library, you can locate the lesson One, Two, Three Little Countable Nouns. You may want to review that lesson before you begin today with the exercises.

 

1-4 A Noncount Noun Is...

 

Study the four sentences in the blue box below.

Each sentence in the box below contains a noncount noun.

Capitalism is the system on which the U.S. economy is based.

There was a lot of crime.

There was no crime and no theft.

There is too much noise outside.

 

What is a noncount noun? 

A noncount noun is a noun that cannot be counted.

A noncount noun has only a singular form.

The word "garbage" is an example of a noncount noun.  It is a singular noun and does not have a plural form.  You cannot have two garbages.  You can, however, have a lot of garbage or two large bags of garbage or fifty pounds of garbage.

The following are common noncount nouns:

advice advertising knowledge news evidence
privacy vocabulary violence music love
work* life justice power respect
success sleep violence electricity gas
heat heating water gold silver
money change** economics peace understanding

* Do not confuse the noncount noun work with the count noun job (e.g. He went out looking for work and he found a job.)

** "change" referring to coins.  (e.g. Do you have any change for a dollar?)

1-4b Subject-Verb Agreement with Noncount Nouns

    

The verb for a noncount noun should be in the singular form.  You can see the logic of this.  Because the noun is singular, the verb must also be singular.

What's wrong with this sentence?

Problem:  They always try to give us good advices.

Solution:  They always try to give us good advice.

Try THESE!

Choose the correct verb form.
1.  Life    (is / are)   full of challenges.
2. There  (is / are)   justice in the world.

Click here for the answers to Noncount Nouns: "Try These".

There's more!

 Click here to continue with "Subject-Verb Agreement with Noncount Nouns".

 

That's it for today's lesson. Thank you for dropping by this week and remember to send us your questions about English grammar by contacting us through our blog.

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