常見錯誤 Common mistakes: ‘so much things’ and ‘so many stuff’

Corrections: ‘so many things’ and ‘so much stuff’

A simple but often forgotten grammar rule:
In English, unlike in Chinese, some nouns can be counted (e.g. birds), while others cannot be counted (e.g. air).

Countable nouns have a singular form and a plural form:

1 idea, 2 ideas, 3 ideas…
1 thing, 2 things, 3 things…

In contrast, uncountable nouns normally do not have a plural form (though, there are exceptions; see below):

air
water
love
stuff

Uncountable nouns

For uncountable nouns, you can use “… much”, not “… many”

(negative) I didn’t eat (so) much food this morning.
(question) How much food did you eat last night?
(positive) I ate so much food last night.
(positive) I ate a lot of food last night.

Note that much is used for negatives or for questions.

For positive sentences, in spoken English, we normally use a lot of or so much… E.g. So much food / A lot of food.

Other quantifiers for uncountable nouns are:

plenty of, some, any, a little, loads of (informal), stacks of (informal), heaps of (informal)

How do you count uncountable noun items?

For every uncountable noun, there is normally a counter. For example:

I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast

Quiz: Can you match the following uncountable nouns on the left with the correct counter on the right? (Answers: see below)

1	celery / incense / butter	A	a bar of
2	chocolate / soap	B	a bottle of
3	coffee / hot chocolate / tea	C	a bowl of
4	deodorant / soda / fly spray	D	a can of
5	lettuce / cabbage	E	a cup of
6	pizza / pineapple / of the action	F	a head of
7	rice / porridge / soup	G	a member of
8	sugar / salt / syrup	H	a roll of
9	staff / the team / a group	I	a piece of
10	toilet paper / footage	J	a stick of
11	water / wine / orange juice	K	a teaspoon of
12	software / information / technology	L	a slice of

Exceptions – uncountable nouns that don’t always need a counter

Some nouns can be used as either uncountable or countable plural. That is, they don’t always need a counter word.

For example, wine can be:

uncountable (like water), e.g. “I drank too much/a lot of wine“
uncountable (using a counter, e.g. a bottle of / a glass of), e.g. “I bought a bottle of wine“
countable singular, e.g. “I had a wine” (meaning a glass of wine)
plural, e.g. “I had 3 wines” (meaning 3 glasses of wine)

Other nouns which can be used as either countable or uncountable:

beer vs beers (=glasses or bottles of beer)
cheese vs cheeses (=types of cheese)
fruit vs fruits (=types of fruit)
chocolate (=from a bar of chocolate) vs chocolates (=in a box of assorted chocolates)

ANSWERS