Listen to English - How many apples? How much sugar? | Текст песни

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What is the difference between apples and sugar?

What is the difference between light-bulbs and electricity?

What is the difference between trees and rain?

What do you think? Do you give up? Shall I tell you?

The difference between apples and sugar is simply this. Youcan count apples - one apple, two apples, three apples etc.You cannot count sugar. You can weigh sugar, you canmeasure sugar, but you cannot count sugar. And it is thesame with lightbulbs and electricity, and trees and rain. Youcan count lightbulbs and trees; you cannot count electricityor rain.

Does this matter, you may be asking? Why is he telling usthese things?

Well, dear listeners, often we want to say "how many?" or"how much?" of something there is. And when we do thiswe need to remember that there are some words which wecan use only with things we can count, and other wordswhich we can use only with things we cannot count. Hereare some examples.

We can count cars - one car, two cars etc. We can say:

there are only a few cars on the road today
there are many cars on the road today
there are several cars parked outside my house
there are fewer cars than there were yesterday

"Few", "many", "several" and "fewer" are words that we canuse with things we can count, like cars. But we cannot usethem with things that we cannot count.

Or, imagine that you are painting your house. We cannotcount paint. We can weigh paint, and we can measurepaint, but we cannot count paint. We can say:

I need a little paint for the kitchen (or a little bit of paint for thekitchen).
so I do not need to buy much paint.
but I need a large amount of paint for living room.
I need less paint for the bathroom than for the bedroom.

"A little", "much", "a large amount of" and "less" are wordsthat we can use with things that we cannot count like paint,but not with things that we can count.

How do you know what things we can count and what thingswe cannot count? Well, generally, if a noun is a plural noun(if it has an "-s" on the end), then it is the name of somethingwe can count, like apples or cars. And if the noun is singular(no "-s" on the end) then it is the name of something that wecannot count, like electricity or rain. If you find it easier, think"plural or singular" instead of "countable or not countable".And remember that there are also lots of words andexpressions that you can use both with things you can countand with things that you cannot count ("lots of. ." is one ofthem).

There is a grammar note on the podcast website with aPDF file which you can download. And there is also a quiz,so that you can test whether you have understood thepodcast.

Finally, here is a problem for you to think about. In manysupermarkets in England, they have a check-out which isspecially for people who only want to buy a few things. Thisis so that they do not have to wait a long time behind peoplewho are buying a whole month's groceries for a family of 12people. There is a sign to show which is the check-out forpeople who are buying only a few things. In somesupermarkets, the sign says "10 items or less". But in onesupermarket, it says "10 items or fewer". Which one isright? Answer next time.