The British Council?s language clinic with ?Dr Danny?

Hello and welcome back to the British Council?s English Language clinic. This week I?ve been asked to focus on furniture, luggage and money. All three of these words are nouns; they are also examples of a specific type of noun: they are all uncountable. This does not mean that the physical objects these words refer to cannot be counted; it is rather the actual noun, the word, which cannot be preceded by a number. For example, it would be incorrect to talk about three furnitures, five luggages or twelve moneys.

When we wish to describe varying amounts of such things as money, we use ?units?. The unit used to talk about furniture is ?item? or ?piece?. Using ?unit? words allows us to ?count? these, and other uncountable nouns. Here are a few examples? pieces of furniture, items of clothing, notes/coins/rupees (money), bottles/glasses of wine, bowls/bags/kilograms of rice, and items of luggage. Uncountable (or mass) nouns should not be confused with nouns which have an irregular plural form such as foot (feet), tooth (teeth) or person (people). These are all countable nouns even though their plural form does not have a letter ?s? at the end. Just to confuse things a little, we do sometimes add an ?s? to the end of uncountable nouns. This is done to indicate that more than one variety is being described. For example, it would be quite correct to refer to ?three fruit juices with unusually low vitamin C content?, although ?juice? is an uncountable noun. So, two marlins in a fishing net are ?fish? but a marlin and a red snapper in the same net are ?fishes?.

Raising awareness of areas of language such as these is a vital part of teaching English as a foreign language. If you are interested in finding out more about how English is taught or if you have a specific question regarding the work of language teachers, why not come to the British Council on 10th May. Between 16:00 and 17:30 we are hosting a presentation by Christina Latham-Koenig, a highly experienced and respected expert in the field of teaching English as a foreign language.

Please send your comments, queries and questions to ?Dr Danny? at the British Council Language Clinic by emailing the following address [email protected]

To find out more about learning English, please contact the British Council by phoning 403 0200.