Recherche parmi différents professeurs en Anglais…
Gerardo
Unusual Plural

Someone could help about the plural of Bread? way it isnt not breads?

thanks

14 janv. 2016 23:24
Commentaires · 4
5

In English, "bread" is not countable, so it has no plural. If you want to count bread, you can loaves, or slices, or pieces, etc.

14 janvier 2016
3

"you can <em>say</em> loaves...."

 

Sorry about the typo ;)

14 janvier 2016
2

It is one of many "mass nouns" or "uncountable nouns." I think the idea is that they are just some kind of <em>stuff, </em>material, rather than being individual <em>things</em>. You turn them into <em>things</em> by using a phrase, such as "a loaf of" or "a piece of."

Here are some other examples:

That is a very big flock of sheep. There a hundred sheep in the flock: fifty ewes and fifty rams.

The water in the world's oceans has a total volume 1.338 billion cubic kilometers. I wonder how many drops of water that is?

 

 

15 janvier 2016
1

As Dan says, there are indeed many non-countable nouns, as well as nouns that may be countable or not

-- How much pizza did you eat?

-- I had three slices (of pizza) / i had two whole pizzas = two pizza pies

 

Abstract nouns can be non-countable as well:

-- Some advice.

To count them, we can use piece "a piece of advice" or a countable synonym "a tip."

 

"Sheep" is always countable, it's just that the plural has the same spelling and pronunciation as the singular....

15 janvier 2016

Ne manquez pas cette occasion d'apprendre une langue depuis chez vous. Découvrez notre sélection de professeurs de langues expérimentés et inscrivez-vous dès maintenant à votre premier cours !