The ultimate guide to countable/uncountable nouns in OET writing

Have you ever got confused while writing your OET letter about the usage of a or an with countable and uncountable? In this post we have collected all the uncountable nouns that can be used in OET writing. You can put a/an to every noun except these nouns.

What is an uncountable noun?

Countable nouns are nouns which can be counted in numbers. For example, one house / two houses. When we use countable nouns, we use the article “a” and the plural “s” (a house, two houses).

Uncountable nouns are nouns which can’t be counted. For example, information. It is not possible to say one information/ two informations. The word “information” can’t be counted using numbers. It can never have a plural “s”. It can never have an article “a” or “an”. And it can never be quantified with any number.

What types of uncountable nouns are there?

Most uncountable nouns relate to:

• liquids (milk, water)
• Diseases(pneumonia, diabetes, influenza …) except “baker’s cyst”
• activities (walking, smoking, drinking)
• abstract ideas (advice, chaos, motivation, education, progress, health, admission, information, accommodation, advice, genetics, importance, assistance, stress, success, knowledge, failure, behavior, equipment, time, support, treatment, management, surgery, labor, discomfort, pain, tissue, research, stiffness, itching, ischemia )
• powder and grain (rice, wheat, sand)
• mass nouns (furniture, hair, transportation)
• natural phenomena (sunshine, snow, rain, weather)
• states of being (sleep, stress, childhood)
• feelings (anger, happiness, enthusiasm, courage)
• gas (oxygen, air)

Uncountable Nouns & Grammar

• How much …? = uncountable nouns / How many …? = countable nouns /
• These = countable / This = uncountable
• many = countable / a lot of = uncountable (and countable)
• not many = countable / not much uncountable (we use “much” with negative uncountable nouns)

To express an amount of an uncountable noun, you must use other words.

• some information = a piece of information
• some clothing = one item of clothing / two items of clothing
• some equipment = a piece of equipment / two pieces of equipment
• some water = a cup of water / two glasses of water

Uncountable Nouns List: A – D

A

• Advice
• Aggression
• Assistance
• Attention
• Adulthood
• Alcohol
• Absence
• Age

B

• Beauty
• Beef
• Business
• Blood
• Butter
• Beer
• Behaviour

C

• Cake
• Confidence
• Cheese
• caner
• Confusion
• Chocolate
• Coffee

D

• Danger 
• Damage
• Diabetes
• Depression
• Dust
• Distribution
• Duty

Uncountable Nouns List: E – H

E

• Enthusiasm
• Environment
• Enjoyment
• Energy
• Existence
• Evidence
• Employment
• Experience

F

• Failure 
• Flu

G

• Growth
• Glass 

H

• Harm
• Hair 
• Help
• Happiness
• Health
• Heat
• Height
• History

Uncountable Nouns List: I – O

I

• Ice
• Imagination
• Information
• Independence
• Importance
• Insurance

J

• Judo
• Juice

K

• Kindness
• Knowledge

L

• Laughter
• Labour
• Lava
• Livestock
• Luggage
• Lightning
• Land
• Leather
• Linguistics
• Light
• Loneliness
• Lack
• Litter
• Luck
• Love 
• Leisure
• Logic
• Literature

M

• Meat 
• Management
• Milk
• Mud
• Mist
• Motivation
• Motherhood
• Measles

N

• Nitrogen
• Nutrition
• Noise
• Nonsense

O

• Obedience
• Obesity
• Oxygen
• Oil

Uncountable Nouns List: P – Z

P

• Pressure
• Psychology
• Pepper
• Patience
• Permission
• Progress
• Production 
• Power 
• Produce
• Pain 

Q

• Quality 
• Quantity

R

• Reliability
• Rum
• Recreation
• Relief
• Respect
• Relaxation 

S

• Saliva
• Surgery
• Strength
• Stress
• Sleep
• Success
• Smoking
• Sport
• Stuff
• Sugar
• Smoke

T

• Tolerance 
• Thirst
• Tennis
• Toothpaste
• Time
• Travel 
• Toast
• Thunder
• Transportation
• Trust
• Trouble 
• Temperature

U

• Understanding 
• Usage
• Underwear
• Unemployment
• Unity

V

• Violence
• Validity
• Vitality
• Vinegar
• Vision 
• Vegetation

W

• Warmth
• Weight 
• Whiskey
• Water
• Wine 
• Width
• Work