A noun is the name of a person, a place, an animal, an object or even a state of being.
They can be concrete (e.g., table) or abstract (e.g., beauty). Nouns can also be singular (e.g., table) or plural (e.g., tables).
In addition, nouns can be used in different ways depending on the context in which they are used. For example, they can be used as subjects of sentences or objects of prepositions and they can also be modified as verbs or adjectives. Understanding how nouns work is essential for mastering English grammar and communication in English.
Types of nouns:
1. Common noun: It is the name given to any person, place, animal or thing.
For example: doctor, world, cat, apple.
The cat is under the tree.
2. Proper noun: Proper nouns are specific names of people, places, animals or things. Proper nouns begin with a capital letter.
For example: John, Pluto, India, Bangalore
I went to Bangalore.
3. Abstract noun: it is the name given to a quality, a concept, an idea, an experience, a state of being, or a feeling. They refer to qualities which cannot be seen or touched.
For example: gentle, colourful, enmity, refusal, wisdom.
He is very humble.
4. Collective noun: It is the name given to a collection of people, animals or things of same kind taken together as one whole.
For example: flight, block, class, group
A bunch of grapes
A range of mountains
5. Countable and Uncountable nouns: common nouns are either countable or uncountable.
– Countable nouns: they are the names of things that can be counted.
Countable nouns are preceded by a, an, the, or numbers one, two three and so on.
For example, a lion, an egg, the bags, two pens
Sometimes, words such as a few, several, a large number of and many are also used before countable nouns.
For example: a few pages, many parts
– Uncountable nouns: they are the names of things that cannot be counted.
Uncountable nouns cannot be used with a, an or numbers one, two,.. and they do not form plurals. Words such as much, a little, a large amount of, enough are used before these kind of nouns.
For example: rice, flour, juice
A lot of rice is grown in India
6.
Singular and plural nouns:
– Singular noun: A noun that refers to a single person or thing.
For example: toy, ball
– Plural noun: A noun that refers to more than one person or thing. To make a singular noun plural we often add s, es or ves.
For example: toy – toys, leaf – leaves, mango – mangoes, bush- bushes, roof – roofs, box – boxes, bunch – bunches
WORKSHEET:
I.
Read the paragraph below and identify the
nouns:
Last summer, I took a plane from London to Rome. From the airport
we went to our hotel by bus. We stopped at a small restaurant for a quick meal.
The driver parked the bus beside the restaurant. We stayed there for an hour.
My holiday was great. I visited the Pantheon and other historical places. An
expert-guided tour of the Colosseum offered a fair introduction to Rome’s past.
Answer:
Last summer, I took a plane from London
to Rome. From the airport we went to our hotel by bus.
We stopped at a small restaurant for a quick meal. The driver
parked the bus beside the restaurant. We stayed there for an hour.
My holiday was great. I visited the Pantheon and other historical
places. An expert-guided tour of the Colosseum offered a
fair introduction to Rome’s past.