Uncountable English Nouns to Count Food Basic English Grammar
hi everybody my name is Alisha today I’m
going to talk about some counter words
that we can use to talk about food so in
previous lessons of this whiteboard
series we’ve talked about uncountable
and countable nouns some words that we
use to talk about food are what’s called
uncountable nouns they’re called
uncountable nouns meaning we cannot say
one two or three directly before the
noun directly before the uncountable
noun instead we count these uncountable
nouns with counter words so today I’m
going to introduce a few common words
that we use to count
uncountable food now so let’s take a
look at a few examples okay
the first counter word I want to talk
about is slice so we use most of these
counter words for example slice followed
by up so slice of plus the noun so let’s
look at some examples with slice we can
use pizza I have an image here slice of
pizza slice of cake slice of bread slice
of fruit fruit keep in mind though we
use fruit for things we can cut into
maybe a shape like this or into a thin
piece of fruit so we would not use for
example berries with the word slice we
would use for example melon or orange
something we can divide by cutting is
something we use the word slice with so
slice is one that we can use with these
verbs or sorry so slice is one word that
we can use with these uncountable nouns
for example we can also use the word
piece so piece is a very very general
word that we can apply to many different
foods because piece refers to a part of
something so if you imagine a large a
large single item like a chicken or
turkey or maybe steak a smaller part of
that we can call a piece so we use the
word piece we can use it with pizza or
cake as we did with slice here but pizza
a piece of pizza is a part of a larger
item part of a larger pizza
same thing with cake so we can use slice
and piece with either cake or pizza and
there are some other words we can use
too so let me say that again so we can
use slice or piece with both pizza and
cake and there are some other cases some
other nouns where we can use both words
as well so we can use it for like I said
meat because we often need to break meat
into smaller parts to eat it so piece we
can use with these larger items that we
make into smaller parts okay another one
you might hear is stick stick we use
stick with butter so one piece of butter
doesn’t quite have the same meaning as
one stick of butter so butter is often
sold in sticks you might also hear stick
used for instant coffee a stick of
instant coffee or a stick of instant
something else so dried ingredients are
often sold in sticks
you might hear a stick of coffee or
maybe there’s an ingredient in your
country that is sold in sticks so we use
stick to talk about a packet of dried
ingredient that’s in a long shape we
also use stick for butter okay next one
is Bowl bowl so foods that are served in
a bowl typically we can use the word
Bowl to talk about those serving sizes
so again we use Bowl plus of plus the
noun so a bowl of rice a bowl of soup a
bowl of salad if you like you can change
if you have a specific soup you want to
talk about you can put the word before
soup so for example a bowl of chicken
soup a bowl of turkey soup a bowl of
minestrone soup you can include the word
to make the soup specific if you like
okay next one jar so a jar is usually a
glass container with a lid that you can
screw twist the top of so we use jar for
Jam or jellies for honey for mayonnaise
for olives any item which is sold in a
jar in that item we can use the word jar
to count that
one jar two jars for example next one is
a bit special the word loaf so loaf we
used to count bread you’ll remember up
here I said slice of bread slice of
bread is used for a a piece a part of
bread
however loaf is used to talk about the
entire bread uncut
so bread that has not been touched a
bread that has not been changed at all
that’s a loaf of bread a loaf of bread
so we use the word loaf to talk about
bread okay on to the other side the next
word is head a head of something we use
this for some vegetables like lettuce
cabbage broccoli cauliflower kind of you
can look at it in this sort of shape it
has this very round side and then maybe
there are some leaves or there like with
cauliflower some flowers at the edge the
other edge so we use the word head to
talk about this so a head of lettuce or
a head of cabbage a head of cauliflower
we can also to talk about smaller sizes
you can say half a head of cauliflower
half a head of lettuce as well so we use
head to count this kind of shape usually
this is a vegetable okay next one is box
so items which are sold in boxes for
example pasta or cookies we can use box
to talk about those another one is bag
we can use bag to talk about items like
flour sugar may be baking related items
a bag of flour a bag of sugar kind of
has this image a bag of something
another one we use bar we use a bar to
talk about candy a bar of candy we use
bar for this you might also hear a
protein bars that could be something
else we use it for but when counting we
use bar to talk about this shape of
candy a bar of candy
ok another interesting word especially
for cooking is pinch pinch
so to pinch means to put your fingers
together in this motion when recipes say
add a pinch of salt or a pinch of pepper
it means a very small
amount enough just enough that it can
fit between your two fingers so a very
small amount we use this for salt or
pepper herbs and spices a pinch of salt
a pinch of pepper means a very small
amount just enough that can fit between
your fingers is a pinch a pinch of
something
last one here also may be useful for
cooking and eating and baking is packet
packet so if you’ve been to a fast food
restaurant maybe you say you have seen
these small containers that are usually
plastic which ketchup and mustard are
kept in so we use the word packet to
talk about those you might also find
yeast packets if you like to bake so
these are the small so these are small
packages that you can rip you can tear
open and the ingredient comes out so we
use the word packet a packet of ketchup
a packet of mustard we use packet to
talk about these so those are a couple
of common counter words that we use to
talk about food I hope that these are
helpful for you of course these are not
the only counter words we use for food
but there are some of the most common
ones so if you have any questions or if
there’s another common counter word that
you’d like to know more about or you’d
like to share please let us know in the
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