• Bring something to the class that represents something you

like. Tell them that it is your favorite thing.

• Ask the children to think of their favorite thing. Give the
students some hints of what they can draw (e.g. food, gift or
toys).
• Tell them to draw it for 10 minutes and pass it forward to
you.
• After all the drawings are handed to you. Ask them why it is their
favorite thing. Ask them to share about their drawing and tell about it to
the class.
• Tell them that their favorite things have names. These names are words
we call “nouns.”
• Tell them that some things are countable while other are not, we call
them uncountable nouns.
• Give examples of countable nouns and give examples of how to
quantify uncountable nouns.
• Group students into two teams then each one would have their chance
to tell if the flashcard showing things is countable or uncountable.
Noun
There are 2 kinds of noun in English:
Countable
Things you can count
(singular or plural)
One apple, two apples,
three apples…
© Rafael Moreno Esteban 2007
Uncountable
Things you can´t count
(they can’t be plural)
Butter, meat…
Some nouns can be
countable or
uncountable but the
meaning is different.
Example: chocolate
There are some nouns we can use in both countable and
uncountable form;

Countable Meaning
There is a hair in my soup
A chicken escaped from the henhouse.
My favorite works of art are from China.
Uncountable Meaning
Sandra has black and long hair.
We had chicken for dinner.
It takes work to prepare a meal.
 COUNTABLE NOUNS

• Countable nouns have a plural form

• Singular: a car
an eggplant

Three
books
Plural Some
Form books
Many
books
 We can use countable nouns with certain definition of numbers.

• For example;
• two kilograms tomatoes,
• five dictionaries,
• seven group of cows,
• tons of oranges,
• three kilograms lemons,
• eighty students
 COUNTABLE NOUNS

SINGULAR FORM PLURAL FORM

• a mobile phone • five mobile phones
• a computer • seven computers
• a business magazine • three business magazines
• an english book • nine english books
• a dictionary • eleven dictionaries
 UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

Uncountable nouns are substances, concepts etc that we

cannot divide into separate elements. We cannot
"count" them.
For example, we cannot count "milk". We can count
"bottles of milk" ( quantifiers) or "litres of milk", but
we cannot count "milk" itself.
 Notice the following categories and examples of uncountable nouns;

• Abstractions: chance, energy, honesty,

love…
• Activities: basketball, dancing, singing,
tennis…
• Diseases: AIDS, cancer, influenza, malaria…
• Foods: beef, bread, fish, fruit, meat…
• Gases: air, carbon dioxide, oxygen,
smoke…
• Liquids: coffee, gasoline, milk, tea, water…
• Natural phenomena: electricity, heat,
rain, thunder…
• Occupations: dentistry, nursing,
teaching…
• Particles: dust, pepper, salt, sand, sugar…
• Solid elements: gold, iron, silver…
• Subjects: Chinese, English, physics,
science…
• Others: equipment, furniture, money,
news…
Some Examples with Uncountable Nouns
I drink a cup of coffee in everyday.
There isn’t any sugar in the kitchen.
My mother buy seven bottles of milk for a week.
She eats a bar of chocolate whenever she wants.
He met me with a bunch of flower in his arms.
There is so much butter in this meal.
Everybody feels the love inside himself.
We have a group of furniture in our house.
They wanted some salt for their plumbs.
In summer, I like drinking water with a block of ice.
I bought a pocket of tea for my guests.
There was so much snow that we all were cold when we were outside.
The room has little light. We nearly can see each other.
Identify the following objects as countable or uncountable.

1. Q: Information 4. Q: Money
a) countable a) countable
b) uncountable b) uncountable
2. Q: Rules 5. Q: Rice
a) countable a) countable
b) uncountable b) uncountable
3. Q: cheese 6. Q: eggs
a) countable a) countable
b) uncountable b) uncountable