搜尋自 英語 {1} 教師……
ㅤㅤㅤ
A + uncountable noun?
Just came across this usage for the first time.
"Cheddar is a kind of cheese" can be shortened to "cheddar is a cheese."
Do you use this rule in real life? How common and practical is this usage? Is it the same rule with "I'd like 2 coffees"? So how do I know which uncountable noun can be used with 'a/an' too?
Other examples are:
Maple is a wood. = Maple is a kind of wood.
Spaghetti is a food. = Spaghetti is a kind of food.
Thank you
2019年2月11日 10:40
解答 · 5
2
1. Yes. This is normal:
Cheddar is a hard cheese from England.
Lapsang Souchong is a smoked tea from China.
In these cases, we interpret 'cheese' and 'tea' to mean 'a specific variety of cheese/tea'. This makes these nouns grammatically countable.
2. No, it's not the same as 'I'd like two coffees'. If you say 'I'd like two coffees', this means two cups of coffee ( not types of coffee).
3. Any noun describing a substance could probably have a countable form meaning 'type of'.
2019年2月11日
1
In this learner's dictionary, "cheese" is defined as a variable noun, which means that it is both countable and uncountable, depending on context. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cheese
Many physical materials are variable nouns, like "wood". It is less common for abstract nouns to be used countably e.g. love, jealousy.
The answer is to check a good learner's dictionary and example sentences.
2019年2月11日
還沒找到你要的答案嗎？
寫下你的問題，讓母語者來幫助你！
