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Originally Posted by vitamin 2 please help me. I still dont get the concet of plural quite well.
my native language is japanese so I was not used to differenciating one thing from multiple things by changing the way of saying it. so i had to study very hard in order to get used to it. and now that i'm accustomed with "a book" and "books", i'm having trouble using some words that are already plural and in no need to be changed when there are many of them, like fish, sheep, laundry and mail(is the word email plural also?) are there any reasons? some historical background or something? or i just have to memorize them?
if i say "there ARE a lot of sheepS"(or " there IS a lot of sheepS""there ARE a lot of sheep.), how weird does it sound to native english speakers? it is something even american or british people confuse every once in a while, or do i sound like japanese trying to learn english? i know I'm better off if i dont any of these kinds of mistakes but i just want to know how big a problem it is.
i have one more question. is there a word for " a grain of rice"? like ri or something?
any reply will be appreciated. THANKS!! |
You have different types of nouns on your list. As TDOL said, "sheep" is a countable noun, but the same form is used for singular and plural. Using "sheeps" would sound strange to any native speaker. Some other animal names are treated similarly, including deer, antelope, bison, and many species of fish (salmon, trout, pike, etc.) The noun "fish" can be singular or plural, but there is also the plural "fishes". That form is usually reserved for cases in which one is trying to discuss different varieties of fish.
Nouns, such as salt (table salt), flour, rice, water, laundry (the clothes), mail, etc. are called "mass nouns". They are usually uncountable because they are view as a whole, not as individual parts. There are exceptions to this rule, however. If one was making bread from rye flour and wheat flour, one could say one is using two different flours. One would say "the water in the ocean" but one could say "the waters of the Great Lakes" to describe the different individual lakes.
Most of these subtleties will come with time. At your stage, lists of countable and uncountable nouns will help get you started.