[Grammar] How much or how many?

[n_bt]

In my native language we don't have count and non-count nouns so this topic is really difficult for me.
When we are talking about sliced tomatoes, is it correct to say " Is there any tomato in the sandwich?"?
what about the word nut? please give me some examples.
Thanks

 

[JMurray]

In my native language we don't have count and non-count nouns so this topic is really difficult for me.
When we are talking about sliced tomatoes, is it correct to say " Is there any tomato in the sandwich?"?

Yes, "Is there any tomato in the sandwich?" is an entirely natural way to say this.
a) "Is there any tomato in this sandwich?"
b) "Yes, I sliced a tomato and put some of it in your sandwich, the rest of it is in the cupboard with the other tomatoes".

What about the word nut?
I'm not sure what you need to know, but here's some conversation.

a) "I bought a bag of nuts this morning and put them into a bowl."
b) "What sort are they?"
a) "They're mixed, some peanuts, walnuts and cashew nuts. I tried a cashew nut but it didn't seem to be fresh."
b) "Maybe we can use these nuts in cooking instead."
a) "OK, do you have a good nut recipe?"

not a teacher

 

[n_bt]

The problem is that some nouns in English are both countable and uncountable like cabbage, tomato, potato, onion ,...
It's grammatically correct to say "how many nuts/ peas/ beans/ do you want?" but it's not common to ask such a question. It's more common to say "how many pea bags...? or How many kilos of ...? or ..."

 

[Rover_KE]

'How many pea bags. . .?' is not common here (I'm guessing that in your country pea growers sell them ready-bagged).

If I'm serving up vegetables at a meal I might say 'Do you want one spoonful of peas/beans or two?'

If I'm buying them from a market trader I'd ask for half a kilogram or two pounds (in weight) or a dollars-worth.

Rover

 

[emsr2d2]

You can use tomato in the non-count sense "Is there any tomato in my sandwich?" but you can use a countable version if you ask "Are there any slices of tomato in my sandwich?".

In some contexts, you could use either. For example, if someone has made a huge pot of sauce to go with pasta, and you really need to know about the tomato content, you could say:

- Is there any tomato in that sauce?
- Are there any tomatoes in that sauce?

 

[n_bt]

Thanks again

 

[emsr2d2]

Thanks again.

Remember to use punctuation at the end of every sentence, including after "Thanks" and "Thank you" and, in this case, "Thanks again".

 

[Rover_KE]

...and to save everybody's time, n_bt, clicking on the Like button is all you need to do to thank us.

Rover