Hello, my name is Emmelda and welcome to my new lesson. A lot of English learners love
to learn new vocabulary as they think it will help them improve their English, which is
right, true. However, you need to have very strong foundation with your grammar as well.
Am I correct? So we will be taking a grammar lesson today on nouns. So those learners who
think... uh this is nouns I know, I know it all, I can handle it. No, hold on as we will
be talking about collective and uncountable nouns. These two set of nouns are such that
a lot of people make mistakes, even the most advanced English speakers as well. So let's
get started with the nouns.
What are nouns? Nouns are names given to person, place, animal or thing or even an organization.
Let me give you an example. John lives in the UK or the United Kingdom with his dog
called Snoopy and he loves to play with his ball or a bat. Now here, John is a name of
a person. UK is a name of a place. Snoopy is a name of a dog which is an animal. Ball
is a name of a thing. So John, UK, Snoopy, ball or bat. One thing that you need to notice
if you are talking about a proper noun, that means a name given specifically to a person
or a place or an animal, you need to start that word, that name with a capital letter.
Notice this, John.. J is in caps, Snoopy... S is in caps, UK it is an abbreviation; this
has to be in capital letters. So J,UK, S all start with a capital letter irrespective where
they are placed in a sentence, okay. So that is a proper noun. But you can't be talking
about John all the time. John lives in the UK. John loves his dog. John works here, John
does this? You need to replace these names or these nouns with other words. That is what
we call pronouns. When you replace with a he or let's say you are talking about me.
Hey Emmelda, looks nice, thank you and you say she wears a beautiful dress. You are replacing
the name Emmelda with she. He, she. The dog loves to lick his master. It is quite funny.
You are replacing the dog with an it. They like the movie or let's say my friends who
went to a theatre loved the movie. They loved the movie so much, they wanted to see it again.
They, you are replacing the friends with they. So he, she, it, they, them. They all are used
to replace someone very specific and that is what you call as pronouns. You call such
words as pronouns. So noun and pronoun is very simple, I'm sure you would agree. So
let's started with the most tricky ones. Collective nouns, what are collective nouns?
A lot of people get confused with collective nouns. Well, in basic English, collective
nouns are words given to a group of people or a group of things or animals. Let's take
a look at a few examples. People, people we have team. A team of employees are working
on a project for an organization. Team of employees, team of students, team of members,
a team. Class, you have class
of students studying a particular subject. Family, this is my family. A family may consist
of more than 5 or 6 people. There are 5 or 6 people, but you consider them family. You
don't say, families, no right. Unless you are talking about two different or three different
families, right. So team, class, family. One thing that you want to note about collective
nouns is that you always use a singular verb when you are referring to one team or a class
or a family. You do not say the team are going here. The team is going here. Irrespective
of how many members the team has. You don't say, the class was or the class were listening
to a lecture, no. You would say the class was listening. So is, was you will use singular
verbs for collective nouns. So a team of people or employees, a class of students, family.
However, if you are talking about police or crew. Let's say something happened, there
was a crime. You would say, hey the police is coming. Yes the police is coming. The next
you are going to say, they are going to catch you. Now here you referring to a few people
in the police department who is going to catch you. Although you use the police and is. But
in the next sentence if you are talking about specific people within this group, you will
refer them in the plural form. Okay, so the police is coming, they will catch you. So
you understood the difference, you use the collective noun with a singular verb.
Now, moving on to animals. A lot of people don't know these words for animals. Herd,
herd of zebras, herd of zebras. The herd of zebras is moving away to escape the lion's
angry roar. Zebras, a herd of zebras. An army of frogs. It is an army of frogs, you don't
say a lot of frogs are going. You can say that, but if a lot of frogs are moving in
one direction together, you say an army of frogs. School of fish. You don't say, there
are so many fishes in the ocean. We say we have many schools of fish in the ocean or
there is a school of fish in the pond. School of fish, it is a collective noun for an animal.
Moving on to things. We can say, do you say a grape, one grape, two grapes. But what if
they come in a bunch. You say a bunch of grapes or a bunch of things. A bunch of grapes, a
clutch of eggs or a dozen of eggs. A dozen means 12 eggs, right. So when you club the
12 eggs together, you say a dozen of eggs. Moving on to, a deck of cards. Yes it is cards
and not cars. I'm talking about cards. So a deck of cards, a fleet of ship or aero planes.
So these are the collective nouns for things. Bunch of grapes, clutch of eggs, deck of cards,
fleet of ships of aero planes. Moving on to the last type of noun which is
the uncountable noun. I don't mean last type of nouns I'm talking about only for this lesson.
So uncountable nouns, what do you mean uncountable nouns. Uncountable nouns are those nouns that
you cannot measure, you cannot count. For example, liquids. Can you say one water, two
water, three water? Do you say give me a water? Or do you say give me a glass of water? Do
you say there is so little water in the pond or do you say there is no less water in the
pond. So it is uncountable. You cannot count liquids; you cannot count milk by drops. You
have to say a packet of milk or a bottle of milk. Liquids, very basic. But how about something
complex? How about when you are talking about advice. Do you say don't give me so many advices.
That is incorrect. Don't give me so much advice. It is advice and not advices. Information,
the information in the manual is quite clear and easy to understand. You don't say the
informations in the manual are quite clear. Information always comes with is. Similarly
intelligence. You don't say how many intelligent you are. You say how much intelligent you
are. For example when we talk about animals. The animal's level of intelligence is lower
than that of humans. You are measuring like a height. You are not saying it is lesser.
Or you are not saying it is 50% lower, no. It is lower than humans. Lastly, garbage.
You don't say let's get rid of the garbages. Like one dustbin or two dustbins. You would
use a collective noun or uncountable noun for garbage. So it is very simple. Lot of
advanced learners make mistakes in these words. Advices, informations, instructions. It is
not instructions, it is instruction. Give me the instruction, I'll give you an instruction.
That's all intelligence and garbage. I hope you understood the lesson on nouns. I hope
you found this lesson extremely helpful especially if you are a beginner level student. I will
be coming back with a new lesson until then, stay healthy, have fun, be beautiful and keep
learning English, goodbye.