NOUNS

What is a noun?

• The books are on the table.
• Love is all you need.
• John is in the garden.
• London is lovely in the summer.

Sometimes, it's difficult to know if a word is a noun or another part of speech. For example, in English, the word 'love' can be a noun and it can be a verb. We need to look at how the word is used in the sentence to work out what part of speech it is. Here are some tips:

• Nouns are often the subject or object of a verb.
• Nouns often come after an article like 'a' or 'the'.
• Nouns often come after an adjective like 'red' or 'pretty' or 'big'.
• Nouns are often used with a determiner like 'this' or 'those'.

Common and proper nouns

• people (Julie, Mr Johnson)
• places (Paris, Africa, California)
• organisations (Coca Cola, the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford University)
• works of art (the Mona Lisa)
• days of the week (Monday, Sunday)
• months (June, October)
• festivals (Christmas, Ramadan)

Concrete and abstract nouns

• See: sand, sea, mountains.
• Hear: music, noise, animals.
• Touch: rain, fabric.
• Smell / taste: apples, chocolate, coffee.

• Feelings: fear, anger, sadness, excitement, jealousy.
• Qualities: honesty, kindness, beauty, patience, intelligence.
• Ideas: freedom, justice, knowledge, education, religion.
• States / experiences: health, sickness, death, peace, age, knowledge, success.

Countable and Uncountable Nouns

Here's a list of some uncountable nouns that we often use:

Try an exercise here where you need to decide if the words are countable nouns or uncountable nouns.

Nouns which are always plural

In English, we have singular nouns (like 'book') that take a singular verb, and we have plural nouns (like 'books') that take a plural verb. We also have uncountable nouns (like 'rice') that always take a singular verb.

Remember:

• singular form of 'be' → is / am (present) or was (past)
• singular form of normal verbs in present simple → verb + -s / -es (e.g. plays)


• plural form of 'be' → are (present) or were (past)
• plural form of normal verbs in present simple → verb (no -s / -es) (e.g. play)

We also have a small group of nouns that are always plural.

Plural nouns always take a plural verb:

• The jeans are red. (NOT: The jeans is red.)
• Your sunglasses are dirty. (NOT: Your sunglasses is dirty.)

Some plural nouns don't end in -s, but they are still plural and take a plural verb (e.g. children, men, women, people).

• The children are playing outside. (NOT: The children is playing outside.)
• People are very friendly here. (NOT: People is very friendly here.)
• The women in this team are very skilled. (NOT: The women in this team is very skilled.)

We use them with 'some' and 'any', not 'a/an':

• I need some scissors. (NOT: I need a scissors.)
• Do you have any clothes I could borrow? (NOT: Do you have a clothes I could borrow?)

We also use them with 'these' and 'those', not 'this' and 'that'.

• These are my glasses. (NOT: This are my glasses.)
• Those binoculars are really good quality. (NOT: That binoculars are really good quality.)

We can't use them with numbers, but we can often use 'number + pairs of'.

• I need two pairs of trousers. (NOT: I need two trousers.)
• There were a few pairs of pyjamas in that pack. (NOT: There were few pyjamas in that pack.)

Words like this include:

• Scissors
• Tweezers
• Tongs
• Pliers

• Glasses
• Sunglasses
• Goggles
• Spectacles
• Binoculars

• Trousers
• Jeans
• Tights
• Pants
• Pyjamas
• Shorts
• Leggings

• Clothes
• Thanks (when it's a noun)
• Congratulations

Collective nouns

We can use some nouns to talk about a group of people. These nouns are called collective nouns, and include words like government, family, team, audience, company, public and staff. These nouns are sometimes tricky because we use them as singular nouns, but they're actually talking about more than one person.

So, do we say, 'my family is coming' or 'my family are coming'?

In UK English, we can use either a singular verb 'The football team is winning' or a plural verb 'The football team are winning', but it's much more common to use a plural verb. US English generally uses a singular verb, and in British English, it's much more common to use a plural verb.

• UK: Are your staff happy?
• US: Is your staff happy?


• UK: My family live in Scotland.
• US: My family lives in Scotland.


• UK: The government are making big changes.
• US: The government is making big changes.

Possessive forms of nouns

We use the possessive form of nouns to say that someone has something or that something belongs to someone.

There are two ways to show possession in English:

1. 'apostrophe + s'

• Tom's car is very fast.

2. + 'of'

• The roof of the house is very old.

Noun + noun

• city centre (= the centre of a city)
• train ticket (= a ticket for a train)
• phone charger (= a charger for a phone)
• coffee shop (= a shop that sells coffee)

Compound nouns

Here are some examples of hyphenated compound nouns:

• mother-in-law
• father-in-law
• X-ray
• T-shirt
• self-control
• self-esteem
• decision-making
• problem-solving

Here are some examples of two nouns written as one:

• toothpaste
• bedroom
• armchair
• newspaper
• notebook
• handbag
• classroom
• hairbrush
• shoelace
• railway
• teabag

Noun phrases

Every sentence in English includes a noun phrase.

A noun phrase can be:

1. a singular noun (a person, place, thing, or idea):

• woman
• own
• car

2. a group of words that has a noun as its main word:

• the car (article + noun)
• some cars (determiner + noun)
• the red car (article + adjective + noun)
• the big red car that was parked on the corner (article + adjectives + noun + relative clause)

Nouns and their verb agreement

The table below shows how the different types of nouns we’ve mentioned either use singular or plural verbs: