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Transitive or intransitive; Countable or uncountable – what does it all mean?
By Liz Walter

It’s all very well being told that we use “many” in front of countable plural nouns and “much” before uncountable nouns, but what happens if you don’t know what “countable” and “uncountable” mean? People like me, who write about language, use these terms all the time but why should we assume that our readers know them? After all, they are quite technical, and most people in the street wouldn’t know their meaning. That’s why I thought we’d take a step back this week and look at a few really basic terms that help learners understand language.

First, “countable” and “uncountable.” A countable noun is one like “apple” or “chair” that can form a plural. If we have four chairs, we can count them. An uncountable noun (sometimes called a “mass noun”) is one like “air” or “sugar” – they are things that you can’t count. It’s important to know the difference because it affects the way other words (like “much” and “many”) are used with the nouns. In the dictionary on this site, countable nouns have [C] written by them and uncountable nouns have [U].

Let’s move on to sentences. When we talk about grammar, it’s often important to know what is the “subject” and what is the “object” of a sentence. In very basic terms, the subject is the person or thing that does the action or causes the action. The object is the person or thing affected by the action. Subjects and objects are usually nouns or groups of words acting as nouns. In these sentences, the bold words are the subject and the underlined words are the object:
+ Ulrika baked a cake.
+ The chair in the corner has a broken leg.

Relating to that, when you learn a verb, you need to know if it is “transitive” or “intransitive.” A transitive verb, such as “repair” or “encourage,” always has an object. You need to say who or what you are repairing or encouraging. An intransitive verb, such as “sneeze” or “laugh,” has no object. There are also lots of verbs that can be transitive and intransitive:
+ He doesn’t like to drive. (intransitive)
+ He enjoys driving the truck. (transitive)

In the dictionary on this site, intransitive verbs have [I] written by them, transitive verbs have [T], and verbs that can be both have [I, T].

These are probably the most important terms you need to know, but there are a few others that we often use. “Modal verbs” are verbs, such as “can” or “might.” (For more information about these, see this blog post.)

“Phrasal verbs” are verbs, such as “give up” and “put up with,” that are formed from a verb with one or two “particles.” They often have a meaning that is very different from the meaning of the verb on its own. There are many posts about phrasal verbs here.

“Passive verbs” are used when the subject rather than the object is the one experiencing the effect of the action, as in the sentence:
+ The play was written by Shakespeare. (For more information on passive, see this blog post.)

Let me know if there are any other grammar terms you don’t understand!