Basic English · 18 min
Nouns
The point
A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea: Mina, Seoul, apple, time. A countable noun adds -s when there is more than one.
Form and use
A noun names a person, a place, a thing, or an idea. A common noun is a general name: city, nurse, apple. A proper noun is one particular name and starts with a capital letter: Seoul, Nia, Monday. A concrete noun is something you can see or touch: desk, rain, dog. An abstract noun names an idea you cannot touch: time, honesty, music. Rain is concrete. Honesty is abstract. A noun can be concrete and still uncountable, like rain.
A countable noun has a singular and a plural: one apple, two apples. An uncountable noun names a mass or an idea you do not count one by one: water, rice, information, advice. Do not add -s to these, and do not put a in front of them. A collective noun names a group as one unit: team, family, class. A compound noun joins parts into one name: bus stop, toothpaste, mother-in-law. The main stress usually sits on the first part of a compound such as bus stop.
Most plurals add -s: book, books. Add -es after -ch, -sh, -s, -x, or -o: watch, watches; box, boxes. A consonant plus y becomes -ies: city, cities. Some plurals change the whole word. man / men woman / women child / children person / people tooth / teeth foot / feet mouse / mice In ordinary lines say people, not persons, and children, not childs. Man does not become mans.
Possession uses an apostrophe. A singular noun takes 's: Nia's key, the child's name. A regular plural that already ends in s takes only the apostrophe: the students' room. An irregular plural that does not end in s takes 's: the children's room, the men's coats. The apostrophe shows whose thing it is. It is not the same mark as the plural -s on the noun itself.
A noun has three jobs in a basic sentence. As subject, it is what the sentence is about: The nurse opened the door. Nurse does the action. As object, it receives the action: in that same line, door is the object. As complement after be, it renames the subject: Nia is a nurse. Here nurse is not an object. It completes be.
Don't translate it like this
Don't say
She has two apple.
Say
She has two apples.
그녀는 사과가 두 개 있습니다.
Two needs the plural.
Short examples
She has an apple.
그녀는 사과가 하나 있습니다.
She has two apples.
그녀는 사과가 두 개 있습니다.
Seoul is a large city.
서울은 큰 도시입니다.
Honesty matters here.
여기서는 정직이 중요합니다.
The team is in the hall.
팀이 홀에 있습니다.
The children are outside.
아이들이 밖에 있습니다.
People need water.
사람에게는 물이 필요합니다.
This is Nia's key.
이것은 니아의 열쇠입니다.
The nurse opened the door.
간호사가 문을 열었습니다.
Nia is a nurse.
니아는 간호사입니다.
Questions
Every question has to be right to close this point.
Answer every question, then check.