Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / November 2007

On Oct 27, 3:19 am, n o s p a m p l e a s e <nospam.ple...@alum.com>
wrote:

Skip down to the dotted line if you already know what a "noun" is,
what "countable" and "uncountable" nouns are, what "partitives" are,
if you've memorized the most common nouns are always uncountable in
English, even though they're not in other languages, and if you know
all about noun+noun collocations.
_______________________________________________________

WHAT IS A NOUN?

At some point in your study of English grammar, you probably learned
the word "noun." A noun is, as you might remember, a word that names a
thing. "Beer" is the noun that names the amber stuff in the big glass
mug with foam floating on top of it. "Snake" is the noun that names
the thing that moves through the grass. "Teacher" is a name for me. We
are both "people."

The word "noun" is a funny word in English grammar because it comes
from the French, "nom," which means "name." If you remember it that
way, you might remember the word better.

English nouns are not male, female, or neuter. They do not change
depending on their placement in sentences and what they do in
sentences, that is, they are not declensed. This was not always true,
but things have been that way in English for at least the last 400 or
so years. A few nouns still have male and female forms: prince,
princess; actor, actress; boar, sow. These are exceptions to the
general rule.

What many English teachers never realize is that this phenomenon in
English is the exception to the general rule in languages. The vast
majority of other language worldwide have a gender-based noun system
and rules of declension that are set in stone. Explaining the complete
absence of such rules and forms to a beginner class can sound much
like an explanation about how color is truly reflected wavelengths of
light. Usually, a science teacher does not blurt out "Everyone, color
does not exist!" and expect the students to understand the whole light
bit intuitively. Language teachers, on the other hand, have been known
to say, "Everyone, English nouns have no gender!" and then move on
(while their students give them the famous "Are you from Mars?" look).

COUNTABLE/UNCOUNTABLE NOUNS

English language teachers use the terms Unit/Mass, Count/Non-count, or
Countable/Uncountable to talk about two different kinds of nouns. It
depends on where and how the teacher was trained: most of us,
including me, prefer the last set of terms. The word "rice" is
uncountable: you ask for "rice" and not for "a rice" when you want
someone to serve you that food. On the other hand, you ask for "a
strawberry" when you want one of that food.

So "rice" is an uncountable noun, while "strawberry" is a countable
noun.

PROBLEMS:

Students generally experience four major problems in separating nouns
into the countable/uncountable categories.

1) Partitives

You've probably learned that "two waters" can mean two GLASSES of
water. Many times, when we use uncountable nouns to talk about food,
we do not use the word that tells us how much of the food we want. So,
you will hear English native speakers say things like "I'd like pie,
please" instead of I'd like A SLICE OF pie. The word that is used to
talk about how much of the noun we want is called a "partitive."

2) Uncountable in English? Why?

All of the above is probably true in your native language. In point of
fact, it is highly likely that your native language works exactly the
same way when it comes to countable/uncountable nouns. This similarity
works against you when you use several often-used words that are
countable in almost any language other than English.

The fact that the commonly-used words below are uncountable in English
does not make sense to most non-native speakers. These words
themselves are not usually false cognates (false-friends), that is,
they do not sound or look the same. The actual idea behind those words
is countable in other languages, but not in English. It might very
well sound bizarre to you, but it's true.

accommodation
advice
baggage
behavior
bread
chaos
damage
furniture
information
luck
luggage
news
permission
progress
scenery
traffic
weather
work
travel (the set phrase "in my travels" and a very few others like it
is an exception to this rule for this word.)

3) Noun+noun collocations

You can say: "Rice cakes are disgusting!" or "Strawberry jam isn't!"
But if you look at the way "rice" and "strawberry" are used in these
utterances, you'll see that they're being used as adjectives, not
nouns. "Strawberry" and "rice" tell us what kind of jam and cakes
we're talking about.

.............................................................................................

4) Dual-form nouns (what you are asking about).

Quite a few nouns can be used as countable or uncountable nouns,
usually with a difference in meaning. Compare:

Countable: Did you hear a noise just now? (a specific noise)
Uncountable: I can't work here. There's too much noise. (interfering
sound in general, all around)

Countable: You can stay with us. There's a spare room. (a chamber in a
house.)
Uncountable: You can't sit here. There isn't room. (space, area)

Countable: How much does that cake cost? (An individually baked item)
Uncountable: Let them eat cake. (The food)

Countable: I had some interesting experiences while I was traveling.
(things that happened to me)
Uncountable: They offered me the job because I had a lot of
experience. (useful time spent doing another, similar job that will
probably made me better at this particular job)

A NOTE ON L1 INTERFERENCE

If the writer's first language (L1) has two words for what the word
"experience" in its countable and uncountable forms means in English,
then making a mistake like the one you cited above is almost
impossible for that person avoid in everyday speech and writing, even
if the speaker knows the rule and has made a conscientious attempt to
learn correct English grammar. Mistakes like this can just pop out in
speech and writing: the ear doesn't hear them and the eye skips over
them.

Careful, consistent practice can eliminate most slip-ups in matters
like this, but even so, a person can spend 20 years in the USA, the
UK, Australia, South Africa, or wherever English is spoken as a first
language, come home, and start making this kind of mistake in less
than three months. This is one of the many realities of trying to
learn a foreign language that the people who sell language learning
courses usually fail to mention, and spy novels quickly skip over.

____________________________________

Some of the explanation above and many of the example sentences in
this post have been shamelessly copied from _English Grammar in Use_,
3rd edition, Raymond Murphy, Cambridge University Press, Unit 70.

n o s p a m p l e a s e schrieb:

Exoperience can be both countable and uncluntable. As a countable noun
it refers to a specific incident or event whereas as an uncountable noun
it refers to experiencwe in generl.

If this is from a CV or resumé I would regard it as an error.

Regards, Einde O'Callaghan