Noun Part II (Uncountable Noun)

Some nouns in English are uncount nouns.


We do not use uncount nouns in the plural and we do not use them with the indefinite article, a/an.

• We ate a lot of foods > We ate a lot of food
• We bought some new furnitures > We bought some new furniture
• That’s a useful information > That’s useful information

We can use some quantifiers with uncount nouns:

• He gave me some useful advice.
• They gave us a lot of information.

Uncount nouns often refer to:

• Substances: food; water; wine; salt; bread; iron
• Human feelings or qualities: anger; cruelty; happiness; honesty; pride;
• Activities: help; sleep; travel; work
• Abstract ideas: beauty; death; fun; life

Common uncount nouns

There are some common nouns in English, like accommodation, which are uncount nouns even though they have plurals in other languages:

advice	baggage	equipment	furniture	homework	information
knowledge	luggage	machinery	money	news	traffic

• Let me give you some advice. 
• How much luggage have you got?

If we want to make these things countable, we use expressions like:

a piece of...

pieces of...

a bit of...

bits of...

an item of...

items of...

•  Let me give you a piece of advice.
• That’s a useful piece of equipment.
• We bought a few bits of furniture for the new apartment.
• She had six separate items of luggage.

but we do not use accommodation, money and traffic in this way


Source : British Council