Peekaboo. How are you? My name is Ronnie. I'm
going to teach you some English. Imagine that I would teach you English on EngVid,
www.engvid.com. Today's lesson is good versus bad with nouns. I hear this mistake a lot, almost every day.
So I want to help you. I want you to sound as natural as possible
when you speak English. So maybe you have already learned that we
have uncountable and countable nouns. Now, what this means -- if you haven't learned this
before -- is that if a noun is uncountable, we do not put an S at the end of the noun.
So things that are really teeny tiny small like rice or sugar or salt are uncountable.
Things that are liquid -- for example beer or water -- are uncountable. So all liquids
and tiny things are uncountable. Also, gases are uncountable. That wasn't me. So I could go on with a massive list of uncountable
nouns, but you can do that yourself. Then, we have countable. Countable, obviously, you
can stick an S on the end of the noun. So most things are countable. For example, dogs,
hamburgers, cats, markers, eyes, hair -- hair is uncountable because there are so
many tiny little hairs on one heads. So this is the rule that you have learned.
If your noun is uncountable, you have to say "too much". So maybe you have come up with a
sentence that says, "I have too much sugar." Good. Okay. So you know that sugar is uncountable,
and you have used a very good English sentence. You used, "I have too
much sugar." Good. And then, your teacher says, "Okay. Make a
countable noun sentence." Okay. "I have too many pens." I have a lot of pens. "I have
too many pens." Very, very good grammatical sentences. But there's a problem. Bad nouns.
Bad, bad, bad nouns. Bad nouns, what I mean is when we use "too much" or "too many", your
noun has to be something that you do not like okay? For example, maybe you go to school
and your teacher gives you homework. Do you think homework is a bad noun or a good noun?
What's your opinion of homework? I hate homework. I hate it. It's boring. I hate it. I hate it.
So in my opinion, homework is a bad noun. So I'm going to say, "I have too much homework."
Because homework is a negative or a bad thing, I can say, "Oh, God. I have too much homework
tonight." Okay? "Too much" and "too many" are always going to be for negative
or bad things that you don't like. So "too many" -- maybe you go to the movie,
and it's really, really crowded. You can say, "There are too many people." Now, maybe you
like people. Maybe you don't like people. But in this situation, having a lot of people
is bad. So once again, it is your opinion. "Too much" and "too many" are always for things
that you do not like personally or you think are bad at the moment. For example, "There
are too many calories in seven cookies." I like cookies. Who doesn't like cookies? I
love cookies. But calories, they're bad. So I can say, "There are too many calories."
Okay? "There is too much rain in the rainy season or in spring. There's too much rain.
I don't want any more rain." Okay? Now, in the reverse, we have the beautiful,
lovely, happy good things. The beautiful, lovely, good things are my good nouns. Good
nouns, as you might have guessed, are things that you like. For example, beer. You will
never, ever, ever, open your fridge and go, "Oh, no. I've got too many beers. I've got
too much beer." This will never happen. You will never go to the bank machine and go, "Look
at that. I've got too much money." Never happens. So when it's a positive thing, what
you're going to say is "a lot of". For example, "I have a lot of friends." Friends are usually
good things. Or if you're lucky, you might say, "I have a lot of money." If you have a
lot of money, Ronnie would like some money. Donate money. Money, money, money. Okay? "I
have a lot of money." "I have a lot of beer." Yes. "I have a lot of friends." The cool thing about "a lot of" is that it can
be used for both countable and uncountable. It's very, very natural in English that we
say "a lot of" as opposed to "too much" or "many". All the time. So what I want you to do is I want you to get
a lot of happiness in your life. I don't want you to have too much homework. I don't
want you to have too many bad people in your life. And I want you to enjoy learning
English. Until then, goodbye.
