Question: My teacher told me that I shouldn’t say many homework? Why not?

Grammar: Nouns – Count and Non-count

The problem here is with the word homework. Homework, like furniture, feedback, rice, and water, is a non-count noun. This means that you can’t say 1 homeworks or five homeworks.

With most nouns, however, we can:

• 5 oranges

• 3 buildings

• a couple of shirts

With count nouns, we use the word many: Many oranges, many buildings, many shirts.

With non-count nouns, we use much:

• I have too much homework.

• I haven’t got much furniture.

Notice: In many sentences, we will use the words ‘a lot of’ instead of ‘much’. Compare:

• I have a lot of homework.

• I have too much homework.

• I haven’t got much homework.

• I have a lot of money.

• I have too much money.

• I haven’t got much money.