uncount nouns

Some nouns in English are uncount nouns.

We do not use uncount nouns in the plural and we do not use them with the indefinite article, a/an.

We ate a lot of foods > We ate a lot of food
We bought some new furnitures > We bought some new furniture
That’s a useful information > That’s useful information

We can use some quantifiers with uncount nouns:

He gave me some useful advice.
They gave us a lot of information.

Uncount nouns often refer to:

• Substances: food; water; wine; salt; bread; iron
• Human feelings or qualities: anger; cruelty; happiness; honesty; pride;
• Activities: help; sleep; travel; work
• Abstract ideas: beauty; death; fun; life

Common uncount nouns

There are some common nouns in English, like accommodation, which are uncount nouns even though they have plurals in other languages:

Let me give you some advice.
How much luggage have you got?

If we want to make these things countable, we use expressions like:

 Let me give you a piece of advice.
That’s a useful piece of equipment.
We bought a few bits of furniture for the new apartment.
She had six separate items of luggage.

but we do not use accommodation, money and traffic in this way.

Exercise