More Uncountable Nouns 不可数名词
Sometimes I hear people say: 'I've a good news for you'. Is the sentence grammatically incorrect? I know 'news' is an uncountable noun so you shouldn't use 'a' in front of it, but I also know that some uncountable nouns can be used countably and vice versa. For example: time is uncountable but we can say 'we have a GOOD time' because 'time' is a countable noun referring to a more particular meaning.
Chun Shan Wan, Hong Kong
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This week we're talking about uncountable nouns and how they can sometimes appear to be countable.
Uncountable nouns are names of things that can't be counted like water or sand. But with a few language adjustments they can be described countable. For example, news can be counted if we describe it as a piece of news.
By giving an uncountable noun a particular meaning it then becomes something that can be quantified. So if we make the word time, which is uncountable, into a good time, we are changing its meaning into a specific occasion when a good time was had.
A piece of cake is countable
There are plenty of other examples and you can hear some in Question and Answer of the Week with Rob and Feifei.
Do you have a question about learning English? 你有没有英语学习上的问题？
Then email us at questions.chinaelt@bbc.co.uk
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