APTITUD COMUNICATIVA INGLES

TEMARIO CONFORME AL PROSPECTO DE LA UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DEL CENTRO DEL PERÚ

SEMANA 3

COUNT AND NON COUNT NOUNS

1. THERE BE

We use «there + be» to talk about the existence of something. «There + be» can be used in all verb tenses, but is conjugated in order to distinguish between singular or plural and countable or uncountable.

There is

«There is» is used with countable nouns in singular and uncountable nouns. The short form is «there’s».

Examples:

Countable Nouns

There is a pencil.
There’s one car.
There is not an apple.
Is there a pen?

Uncountable Nouns

There is milk.
There is not time.
Is there sugar?

There are

«There are» can only be used with countable nouns in plural. There is no short form.

Examples:

There are five pencils.
There are not two cars.
Are there many people?

There v. It

We use «there» when we speak of something for the first time, to indicate that it exists. On the other hand, we use «it» to speak of something specific.

Examples:

There is a pen on the table. It is my pen.
There is a car in the garage. It is blue.
There is milk. It is in the refrigerator.

2. QUANTIFIERS

Quantifiers indicate the quantity of a noun. They respond to the questions, «How much?» or «How many?». As with the articles in English, quantifiers define nouns and are always located in front of the noun they define. Some quantifiers can be used only with countable nouns, others only with uncountable nouns and others with both.

3. COUNTABLE AND UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

Nouns in English can be either countable or uncountable.

Countable Nouns

Countable nouns are those nouns that can be counted.

Examples:

one [a] pencil
two cats
three houses

Uncountable Nouns

Uncountable nouns are those nouns which cannot be counted because they cannot be defined individually, but rather are part of a whole. As such, they are treated as singular (you can not make them plural by adding «-s»).

salt, wood, tea, wine, sugar, bread, furniture, hair, information, money, weather, time, rice…

However, once we delimit these nouns by placing a countable expression in front of the noun, they become countable.

Examples:

a gram of salt
a piece of wood
two cups of tea
three glasses of wine

Grammatical Rules

1. Countable nouns have a plural form (regular or irregular):

Examples:

egg = eggs
bicycle = bicycles
dress = dresses

Uncountable nouns do not have a plural form:

rice
rices
milk
milks

2. You can use «a» or «an» with countable nouns in singular:

Examples:

an apple
a house

We cannot use «a» or «an» with uncountable nouns:

a milk

3. Numbers can be used in front of countable nouns:

Examples:

three apples
five houses

Numbers cannot be used in front of uncountable nouns:

two rices

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