The Countable and The Uncountable Nouns

Some countable and uncountable nouns. 

The two biggest groups of nouns are countable nouns and uncountable nouns.

Most countable nouns - or "count nouns" - are words for separate things. Uncountable nouns - or "uncount nouns" or "mass nouns" - are usually words  for things  which are thought of as a quantity of mass, not as separate itens. See examples of both the cases in the picture. However, there are some nouns that seems to be countable nouns but they are not. Examples: furniture (a kit of pieces like a sofa, some chairs, some beds, etc., in a house), information (a set of news or data), equipment (a kit of itens with just one finality), etc.

- Countable Nouns:

A countable noun can be a singular form and a plural form. In a singular form, it must always have a determiner in front of it. Some examples of determiners: any, no, the, which, what, whose, and the possessive determiners: my, their, your, his, her, etc. Countable nouns in the singular form can be also used with "a", "another", "that", "every", "either", "neither", etc. In the plural forms, they cam be used with "both", "enough", "few", "many", "more", "most", "other", "several", "some", "these", "those", or without a determiner at all:

• I'm having a dinner with friends tomorrow.
• She's learning to play piano this month. 

Countable nouns are the most common type of noun. In some cases they have only one meaning. In other cases they have several meanings but all their meanings are countable.

- Uncountable Nouns:

An uncountable noun has only one form, not a separate singular and plural. They can be used without any determiner in front, or with the following determiners: "enough", "little", "more", "most", "much", "other", "some", "that" and "this". They can be used with "any", "no", "the", "what", "which", "whose" and the possessive determiners "my", "their", "your", "his", "her", etc.
In other words, we can say taht uncountable nouns are substances, concepts, etc., that we cannot divide into separate elements. They are things that we cannot count. As we usually treat uncountable nouns as singular, we use singular verbs. Examples:

• This information is very important.
• All the water of the sea is salty.
• The population of this country has many cultural aspects.

With nouns as "furniture", "equipment" and "information", as with many other uncountable nouns, we can talk about mounts of the thing or saparate parts by using some phrases like "a piece of", "three parts of", "half of", etc. Examples:

• Half of Brazilian people is in rural zones.
• This is a piece of the cake I buyed yesterday.

In the next post: the diferences between "language" and "idiom".