Job Discussion Forums

[Margot73]

count and non-count (mass) nouns, besides saying that count nouns are things you can count?Obviously I use a lot of examples, but for a general explanation...? It's one of those things that if I start to really think about it, I even confuse myself.

[Justin Trullinger]

The count nouns are, well, count nouns, and the others are, like, others...


Sorry not to help. But it's one of those things where you can make a general rule of thumb if you want, but it's mostly practice and memorization. Any rule or explanation that you offer them is going to have exceptions.

Best,
Justin

[rusmeister]

Offer examples of things that can't be counted by trying to count them without using any units to count them with ('5 waters' or 'seven flours'). If you have water handy, just pour a tiny little bit into your cupped palm and ask "How many waters? 3? 5?" Don't allow them to say, "3 ounces of water' or whatever. It has to be '3 waters'. When they realize you can't do that, they should get the idea.
For some things this won't work, of course (like grapes in Russian are uncountable), but in Indo-European languages at any rate, the concept is pretty consistent. (I can swear to Slavic, Germanic and Romance languages anyway)

[abusalam4]

There are many explanations in more formal or less formal pedagogical grammars. I need not repeat them here, you may look them up yourself.
I have been working in the field of Contrastive Grammar all my life. When in China, I referred to so-called "measure words" they have in Chinese and a couple of other languages and that native speakers of Chinese know.

In Chinese, you almost always use such am measure word before a countable noun preceded by a numeral:

(1) sange ren =3 people (san=3, ge=measure word, ren=person, people)

So I could always tell my students: countable nouns in English are those foe which, when translating them into Chinese, you would always use a measure word with a numeral preceding it. If you do not need a measure word in Chinese, then the noun is most likely non-coutable both in Chinese and English.

I always started with using appropriate sample sentences illustrating the point and had them find the answer based on their intuitive knowledge of their native tongue. Only at the very end I gave them the rule.

It is a bit of a linguistic stuff but a rule down to earth that students were able to work with - according to the feedback I had when testing them on this.

[basiltherat]

as a rule of thumb:

(raw) materials --- such as wood, cotton gold, e.g. zinc etc

liquids --- coffee, juice, alcohol (except wen we talk about them in a cup or glass e.g. '3 coffees, please')

powders -- sand, talc etc

pastes of various sorts ---- jam, etc

semi-liquids --- glue, white-out, etc

most of above are uncountable

there are clearly exceptions but more often than not it seems to work.

probably not A LOT of help but its something.

the big problem is abstract nouns e.g. responsibility / ies, experience/s. needs extra care, i think.

best
basil