Question

Pick out the countable and uncountable nouns from the following sentence-
He drinks a glass of milk daily.
a)Glass- Countable; Milk- Uncountable
b)Glass- Uncountable; Milk- Countable
c)Glass, milk- Uncountable
d)Glass, milk- Countable

Answer 1

Hint: Countable nouns refer to those physical nouns that can be counted in numbers whereas, Uncountable nouns refer to those abstract nouns that cannot be counted in numbers.

Complete answer:

 As given in the hint, Countable nouns have a singular and a plural form but Uncountable nouns are used with a singular verb, as they lack plural forms.
Hence, we can use ‘a, an and the the’ with countable nouns but we cannot use ‘a and an’ with uncountable nouns.
Let’s look at an example-
Countable nouns- I drank two cups last night. Here, ‘two cups’ is a countable noun as we can count the noun ‘cup’ in numbers.
Uncountable nouns- I drank some milk in the morning. Here, ‘some milk’ is an uncountable noun as we cannot count the noun ‘milk’ in numbers.
Let’s examine the given options-
a)Glass- Countable; milk- Uncountable= Glass is a countable noun as we cannot count it in numbers whereas, milk is an uncountable noun we can count it in numbers. Hence, it is the correct option.
b)Glass- Uncountable; milk- Countable= Glass is not an uncountable noun, similarly, milk is not a countable noun. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
c)Glass, milk- Uncountable= Glass is a countable noun as we can count it. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
d)Glass, milk- Countable= Milk is an uncountable noun as we cannot count it in numbers. Hence, it is an incorrect option.
The correct answer is Option ‘a’.

Note: We can use some nouns as both countable and uncountable nouns. Example- hair, time, art, etc. (1) Did you have a fun time at the function? (2) I don't have time to eat breakfast in the morning. We have used ‘time’ as a countable noun in (1) and as an uncountable noun in (2).