Learn how to use non-count nouns
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Natalie: Good morning! |
| Braden: Braden here. English Nouns, Part 2: Non-Count Nouns |
| Braden: In this lesson, you'll learn How to use non-count nouns. |
| Natalie: This conversation takes place one the street in San Francisco. |
| Braden: And it’s between David and Jessica. |
| Natalie: After the ice-breaker in Denver, Jessica and David became friends and are now speaking casually. |
| Braden: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| David: Wow. I just had a bit of déjà vu. |
| Jessica: Oh yeah? |
| David: I visited San Francisco years ago and I remember walking down this road with some friends. We were eating some chocolate. |
| Jessica: What did you like most about San Francisco? |
| David: The people. There's a diverse mix of people in the city and that makes it all the more interesting. |
| Braden: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| David: Wow. I just had a bit of déjà vu. |
| Jessica: Oh yeah? |
| David: I visited San Francisco years ago and I remember walking down this road with some friends. We were eating some chocolate. |
| Jessica: What did you like most about San Francisco? |
| David: The people. There's a diverse mix of people in the city and that makes it all the more interesting. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Braden: So, we wanted to talk a little bit about San Francisco. |
| Natalie: That's right. San Francisco and the San Francisco region is the most densely populated area in the United States after New York City with a population of 7. 6 million people. |
| Braden: Today, San Francisco's one of the top tourist destinations rating 33th of the 100 most visited cities in the world. It is also a principal banking and finance center and the home of more than 30 international finance companies. |
| Natalie: But even with all those banks, tourism is still the largest portion of the San Francisco economy. More than 16 million people visited San Francisco in 2011 and injected over $8 billion into the local economy. |
| Braden: Many popular and prominent Internet companies have headquarters in San Francisco such as twitter, Salesforce.com, the Wikimedia Foundation, and Craigslist. |
| Natalie: Talking about education, the University of California San Francisco is one of the very few campuses entirely dedicated to graduate education in health and biomedical sciences. It is ranked among the top 5 medical schools in the United States and operates the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, which ranks among the top 10 hospitals in the country. |
| Braden: It is also the 2nd largest employer in the region. So a great place to work and a great place to go to school. |
| Natalie: Looks like it. Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Braden: The first word we're going to look at is... |
| Natalie: déjà vu [natural native speed] |
| Braden: a feeling of having already experienced the present situation |
| Natalie: déjà vu [slowly - broken down by syllable] déjà vu [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Natalie: eating [natural native speed] |
| Braden: putting food into the mouth, chewing, and swallowing it |
| Natalie: eating [slowly - broken down by syllable] eating [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Natalie: purchase [natural native speed] |
| Braden: to acquire something by paying for it; buy |
| Natalie: purchase [slowly - broken down by syllable] purchase [natural native speed] |
| Braden: Next |
| Natalie: mix [natural native speed] |
| Braden: two or more things that have been combined |
| Natalie: mix [slowly - broken down by syllable] mix [natural native speed] |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Braden: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Natalie: In the dialogue, we heard the phrase “just over there.” |
| Braden: Now, the phrase “just over there” is an interesting one. In many languages – including Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian – this three word phrase is just a single word. |
| Natalie: However, in English the idea is broken down between these three terms. So, the “just” gives the feeling of a little bit. |
| Braden: Then, the word “over” gives the feeling of above or distant from. |
| Natalie: Lastly, the word “there” gives the feeling of location. So the entire phrase “just over there” has the feeling of somewhere nearby. |
| Braden: Often, the specific location referred to will either be understood by context or the person will point to the location being talked about. So someone might say, “It's just over there.” |
| Natalie: And while doing that, be pointing off to their left. |
| Braden: Could you break this down for us? |
| Natalie: (slowly) just over there |
| Braden: And one time fast? |
| Natalie: (fast) just over there |
| Braden: Perfect! What’s next? |
| Natalie: In the dialogue, we heard the word "diverse." |
| Braden: Now, the word “diverse” is an adjective and what we call a “buzzword.” A “buzzword” is a word that is used a lot in the media. |
| Natalie: “Diverse” comes from the root noun “diversity” which means – “variety,” or “a range of different things.” |
| Braden: These two words, “diverse,” and “diversity,” are often used to describe populations, or groupings of people. |
| Natalie: For example, in the dialogue David said, “There is a diverse mix of people in the city.” |
| Braden: This means that there are many people who are very different from one another in the city of San Francisco. Could you break this down for us? |
| Natalie: (slowly) diverse |
| Braden: And one time fast? |
| Natalie: (fast) diverse |
| Braden: Excellent! Let’s take a look at the grammar point. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Braden: So Natalie, what’s the focus of this lesson? |
| Natalie: The focus of this lesson is non-count nouns and how to use them. |
| Braden: In the dialogue we heard the phrase |
| Natalie: I’ll start the checklist and wait for you to come back. |
| Braden: Okay so, In English, there are 2 kinds of nouns – count nouns and non-count nouns. |
| Natalie: Over the next 2 lessons we're going to learn about each of these. |
| Braden: In this lesson, we're going to learn about non-count nouns. |
| Natalie: So, Non-count nouns are nouns that cannot be counted. |
| Braden: That may seem obvious but that means the word typically cannot be pluralized. For example – |
| Natalie: “There are 2 fish on the plate." |
| Braden: Also, a non-count noun is singular and indefinite so we either use the word "some" or nothing at all instead of the article. For example – |
| Natalie: “Could I have some water please?" |
| Braden: To review, it is often difficult to know whether a noun is a count noun or a non-count noun. In general, count nouns are usually objects that can be easily counted such as "pen,” “car,” and “shoe.” |
| Natalie: Non-count nouns, on the other hand, tend to be substances such as “air,” "rice,” or “sand.” They can also be “large, abstract ideas such as “nature,” “space,” or “education.” |
| Braden: Let's take a look at four non-count nouns and an example phrase for each. The 4 words we will look at are “clothing,” “soup,” “cheese,” and “literature.” |
| Natalie: First, we’ll look at Clothing. For example, "Clothing in New York is expensive." |
| Braden: Here, the word “clothing” stands on it's own and is not preceded by the article “the.” This tells us that the word “clothing” is a noncount noun. |
| Natalie: Next we’ll look at the word “Soup.” Our example sentence for this is – “Why is soup always so hot?" |
| Braden: In this sentence, the word “soup” is preceded by the singular verb "is." |
| Natalie: This helps us know that it is singular and therefore a non-count noun. |
| Braden: Next, we’ll look at the word “Cheese.” For example, “How many pieces of cheese would you like?" |
| Natalie: Here, the word "cheese" is preceded by the phrase "pieces of." It sounds very unnatural to say – "How many cheeses do you want." |
| Braden: Last, we’ll look at the word, “Literature.” Our example sentence is, “Literature is important to language learning." |
| Natalie: In this sentence, we don't have the article "the" preceding "literature" and there is no "s" so we know it isn't plural." |
| Braden: In these cases we sometimes need to think about whether or not the objects can be counted. |
| Natalie: In this case, "literature" cannot be counted because "literature" is a large abstract idea. You cannot have "one literature" nor "two literatures." |
| Natalie: Let's review this lesson. |
| Braden: So, in English, there are two types of nouns – count nouns and noncount nouns. |
| Natalie: In this lesson we dealt with non-count nouns. We learned about count nouns in the last lesson. |
| Braden: Non-count nouns are nouns that cannot be counted. In other words, they can't be plural. They are only singular. |
Outro |
| Braden: That just about does it for this lesson. Thanks for listening. |
| Natalie: Bye-bye! |
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