make a noise????

[cherry maltezidou]

I saw in a coursebook "the baby is sleeping. Don't make a noise."
Noise is an uncountable noun...why do we put an article?

 

[montfan]

I am not a teacher.

"noise" can be both countable and uncountable.

"don't make a noise"
"there is too much noise"

You can hear "a noise", and you can hear "two noises", but you can also say that a lot of noises together is noise.

Both of these can be correct, though they have slightly different meanings. The first means do not make a single sound. The second means dont make many sounds.
"the baby is sleeping. Don't make a noise."
"the baby is sleeping. Don't make noise."

 

[5jj]

Both of these can be correct, though they have slightly different meanings. The first means do not make a single sound. The second means dont make many sounds.
"the baby is sleeping. Don't make a noise."
"the baby is sleeping. Don't make noise."

The second sounds very strange to me. More natural to me would be:

Keep the noise down.
Try not to make too much noise.

 

[JMurray]

"Don't make any noise"... or as my Mum used to say, "No noise now, not a peep".