I recently had a lesson with a student who kept saying advices and that gave me the idea to write about some words which are uncountable in English.
Let me introduce you to some of those words:
advice, equipment, information, knowledge, money, news, research, stuff, time, work
- With these words, we don’t use a/an when talking about 1 thing.
Where did you find this stuff?
She bought new equipment for diving underwater.
We’ll send you the money when we get back to the office.
Knowledge is hard to get.
- And, when we want to talk about more than 1 thing, we can use words like some, a bit of, a lot of and much.
I need some advice about traveling around Spain.
With a bit of money, he agreed to make the changes we needed.
I can’t come with you. I have a lot of work to do this Friday.
I don’t have much time so listen to me!
Let’s practice these words by completing a short story.
Now, see if you can find which sentences are wrong below.
The words time and work can also be countable, but they have a different meaning:
He tried to apply to university 4 times. (= 4 tries to become a student)
You can find the works of Michelangelo at our museum. (= creations: paintings, sculptures, music)
How many times have you given people some advice and did they often listen to you? Let me know in the comments below. 🙂