Countable and Uncountable Nouns:
Welcome to the course! Meet Gui Tiao, who’s going to be leading you through this course.
For our first lesson, we’re going to look at countable and uncountable nouns! We’re going to start by following Gui Tiao through a market. Her mother is going to cook a big meal tonight, so she sent Gui Tiao to get the ingredients.
Gui Tiao goes to the seafood stall first. She hasn’t been to the stall in a long time, and is surprised when she realises that the lady who runs the store has many more grey hairs than when she saw her last.
Gui Tiao doesn’t have a lot of tact, so when she walks up to the old lady, she says, “Good morning, Popo. Your hair has gone grey!”
Gui Tiao gets a hard look in return. (No one likes to be reminded that they’re getting older…) Stiffly, Popo says, “What are you here to buy today, Gui Tiao?”
Gui Tiao says, “A packet of fish balls and ten prawns, please.”
The fish balls and prawns are put in a plastic bag and handed to Gui Tiao, who pays and walks off happily. Next, she goes to the neighbouring stall, which sells eggs.
The man who sells eggs is very friendly. When he sees Gui Tiao, he breaks into a smile. “Gui Tiao! It’s been a long time.”
“Hello, Uncle,” Gui Tiao replies. She points towards the packet of twelve eggs that he is holding. “Can I have the eggs you’re holding, please?”
“Of course,” Uncle replies. Gui Tiao gives him the money, and he gives her the eggs.
Then, Gui Tiao heads to the vegetable stall. She points towards the bean sprouts. “Can I have some of those, please, Auntie?”
Auntie gives her a warm smile. “Of course. Do you want anything else?”
Gui Tiao searches the stall. She sees tofu: her favourite. She checks the list, but there’s no tofu on it, so she drags her gaze away sadly. The chives catch her eye, and she points towards them. “Can I have some chives too?”
Everything is packaged up neatly and handed to her, and she pays for it. Before she goes, Auntie says, “Wait.” She fishes for some tofu out of the bucket.
Gui Tiao gapes at her and looks down at the money she has. She still has to pay for the kway teow, and she doesn’t have much money left. Hesitantly, she says, “How much does the tofu cost?”
“It’s free,” Auntie says, already pressing the packet into her hand. It’s just another example of Malaysian hospitality, so Gui Tiao doesn’t argue and accepts it gratefully. Waving goodbye, she walks to her final stop: the noodle stall.
There are lots of noodles here, but Gui Tiao is only interested in one: the kway teow packets. She snatches two up deftly and hands them to the Uncle who runs the stall along with the money for it.
Finally, Gui Tiao is done shopping! Armed with her purchases (and the tofu), she brings the ingredients back home for her mother to cook.
CONCLUSION -
-
Countable and uncountable nouns are pretty easy! Just think whether or not you can count them - in most cases, this will be right.
-
For uncountable nouns, you can’t use a number before them - because you can’t count them. (So there’s no such thing as “one tofu”.)
-
However, if you add a quantifier before it, you can say “one (quantifier) of (object)”, for example “one packet of tofu”.
Gui Tiao’s mother’s shopping list
-
One packet of fish balls
-
Some prawns
-
A dozen eggs
-
Some bean sprouts
-
Some chives
-
Two packets of kway teow
Hair is special because it is both countable and uncountable. If you say someone has many more grey hairs, this usually means that you can count the number of grey hairs, so there aren’t many and you say hairs because it’s countable. However, if their hair is completely grey, you would say hair (uncountable).