The Learning Centre

Countable Nouns	Non-Countable Nouns

Nouns that can be counted Example: Three books, Ten years ago	Nouns that can't be counted Example: milk, water, rain, electricity, wind, baseball, French, psychology
We can count a glass, but we cannot count milk. However, we can count a glass of milk.
We don’t always indicate quantity with specific numbers. Sometimes we use noun quantifiers to indicate approximate amount and these vary according to whether the noun is countable or non-countable.

Some noun quantifiers

For Countable nouns: A couple of, a few (+ variations: fewer, fewest, etc), both, each, every, many, one (+ variations), several.	Both Count & Non-Count Nouns: All, a lack of, a lot of, any, a piece of, enough, no, none (+ variations), more, most, plenty of, some, the.	For Non-Count Nouns: A good deal of, a little (+ variations: little, etc), less, much.
Caution: Some uncountable nouns can be countable depending on the context in which they are used. Example: I cut my hair (non-count) We found 2 hairs in our meal (count)
They have a class this afternoon. I have too many classes this semester.		Our teacher assigned homework for next class. I have to do a lot of homework this weekend.