Count and Noncount Nouns

Count nouns are nouns you can count. They exist as individual units, and they can be cut into parts. Some examples of count nouns include tree, house, boy, girl, country, city, idea, etc.

Count nouns can be pluralized. We can have three trees, two girls, or many ideas. It is possible to use the articles a and an with count nouns, when there is only one of them. For example, "I met a cute boy today," or, "That's an interesting idea."

Noncount nouns are nouns that can’t be counted or broken into parts. These nouns cannot be pluralized. They have no plural form. Liquids such as coffee or water, abstractions such as love or peace, and collective nouns such as furniture or luggage are all examples of noncount nouns.

Noncount nouns cannot be used with the articles a or an. To show the quantity of a noncount noun, we use expressions like some, much, less, a lot of, a little of, etc. For example, "I have a lot of furniture in my house," or, "This guidebook doesn't include much information about French culture." With noncount nouns, we cannot use the expressions "a few," "many," "both," "several," "one of," or "a couple of."