Please explain me countable and uncountable

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Creativeguru

#494273 Sat, 29 Mar 08 08:40 AM

I am going out of town for a few weeks because I desperately need a change.

In the above sentence shall article comes before change and please tell me what is countable and uncountable, as for countable we use article and vice vera

Creativeguru

Joined on Fri, Feb 8 2008

India

Regular Member (749)

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Maple

#494278 Sat, 29 Mar 08 09:22 AM

Change can be countable or uncountalbe depending on its meaning.

In your sentence, you need an a before change.

How to use it correctly? I suggest you read all the example sentences in Cambridge Advanced Learners Dict, for I guess in cases like this, not many reasons can be dug out.

Maple

Joined on Tue, Jul 11 2006

An ESL student in China

Contributing Member (1,110)

Yoong Liat

#494293 Sat, 29 Mar 08 12:37 PM

Hi Creativeguru

A countable noun can be counted. For example, one boys, two boys; one table, two tables.

I believe you are confused by words such as money and water. Some may say that money can be counted. For example, I have one hundred dollars. However, you are not counting money; you are counting dollars, because dollar is a countable noun. Similarly, we can say two cups of water; two glasses of water. We are in fact counting cup and glass, because they are countable nouns.

I hope I've given you a clear explanation of countable and uncountable nouns.

Yoong Liat

Joined on Mon, Sep 4 2006

Singapore

Veteran Member (6,085)

Yoong Liat

Maple

#494312 Sat, 29 Mar 08 02:44 PM

If a thing has a definite shape, it's clear that it's countable. I guess every student can grasp this without difficulty.

But when a word's meanings are somewhat abstract, things become tricky.

change, shape, difficulty, disease, illness, construction, illusion, confusion..Words like these are all countable yet uncountable.

I doubt anyone can explain very successfully the reason why change is taken as countable under certain circumstances while uncountable under other circumstances. It's always been a challenge to my own construction of sentences.

But, of course, Englishforums is a wonderful website, maybe someone CAN explain this stuff. I don't know...

Regards!

Maple