A Sommelier Counts What You Can’t — Countable & Uncountable
A2 · Countable/Uncountable
A Sommelier Counts What You Can’t
📖 From my experience:
At The Ivy in Sydney I was front-of-house sommelier. Wine is uncountable. But a glass of wine — countable. A bottle — countable. A sip — countable. The liquid stays uncountable; the container makes it countable. I served thousands of ‘glasses’ and never once said ‘a wine’ without ‘glass of’ before it.
At The Ivy in Sydney I was front-of-house sommelier. Wine is uncountable. But a glass of wine — countable. A bottle — countable. A sip — countable. The liquid stays uncountable; the container makes it countable. I served thousands of ‘glasses’ and never once said ‘a wine’ without ‘glass of’ before it.
🎯 Language focus:
Countable nouns have a/an + singular and a plural form.
Uncountable nouns have no plural and cannot take a/an.
Countable nouns have a/an + singular and a plural form.
Uncountable nouns have no plural and cannot take a/an.
Uncountable: water, milk, wine, coffee, bread, rice, money, information, advice, furniture
Countable: a glass, a bottle, a cup, a table, a suggestion
Tip: use ‘a piece of’, ‘a glass of’, ‘a slice of’ to count uncountable nouns.
✅ Examples:
❌ “Can I have an advice?” ✅ “Can I have some advice?”
❌ “I need informations.” ✅ “I need some information.”
✅ “A glass of water, please.” (container = countable)
✅ “Two pieces of bread.” (portion = countable)
❌ “Can I have an advice?” ✅ “Can I have some advice?”
❌ “I need informations.” ✅ “I need some information.”
✅ “A glass of water, please.” (container = countable)
✅ “Two pieces of bread.” (portion = countable)
Countable (C) or Uncountable (U)?
1. furniture U — ‘some furniture’, NOT ‘a furniture’ or ‘furnitures’
2. suggestion C — ‘a suggestion’, ‘three suggestions’
3. How do you make ‘rice’ countable? a grain of rice / a portion of rice / a bowl of rice
🧒 For younger learners: Sort cards! Give kids small cards with words — they race to put them in ‘count it!’ vs ‘you can’t count it!’ piles.
👩🏫 Cambridge CELTA note: Countable/uncountable is a core A2 lexis item. Key anticipated problem: false cognates (e.g. French ‘une information’ is countable in French, not English). Use images: a bag of rice vs a grain of rice. Drill: ‘How much / How many?’
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