The difference between countable and uncountable nouns

Countable nouns can be counted (a/one book, two books, a lot of books), while uncountable nouns cannot (a/one news, two freedoms). Therefore, uncountable nouns only have singular forms and are followed by singular verbs. We should bear in mind that, even though a noun is uncountable in English, the word for it in another language may well be countable, and vice versa. When in doubt, one should always consult a dictionary. However, certain kinds of nouns are usually countable or uncountable in English:

Countable nouns

• people (a teacher, a child, a gentleman)
• animals (a butterfly, an elephant, a whale)
• plants (a flower, a bush, a tree)
• physical objects (a bag, a pen, a mountain)
• units (a litre (of), a kind of, a part of, a family, a village, a word)

Uncountable nouns

• abstract ideas (love, death, beauty)
• gases (smoke, air, steam)
• liquids (water, milk, blood)
• substances and materials (wood, iron, fabric)
• other substances consisting of many small particles (sugar, rice, sand)