Countable and Uncountable Nouns- Kitchen Shopping Roleplay Discussion

Countable and uncountable nouns kitchen shopping roleplay discussion

You have just moved into a new house together and have nothing in the kitchen. Suggest things below that you need to buy, such as categories or specific things below, e.g. “I think we need toothpicks”. If your partner agrees that you need to buy that thing, try to also agree on how much or how many you need (adding “-s” to any words that need it), e.g. “How much mustard do we need?” “Just one small jar should be enough” “I agree”/ “Actually, I use lots of mustard. Can we get two medium-sized jars?”

Suggested food etc to talk about 

• Alcohol (cider/ hard cider, cocktail, lager, liqueur, rice wine, spirit, stout, vodka)
• Asian food and drink (bamboo shoot, bean curd, chewy rice cake, Chinese dumpling/ dim sum, pot noodle, fishcake, fish sauce, fried rice, lotus root, miso soup, pickled plum, pork bun, powdered green tea, prawn cracker, red bean jam, rice cracker, rice porridge, sesame oil, soy sauce, spring roll, rice wine vinegar, water chestnut)
• Condiment/ Seasoning (barbecue sauce, bay leaf, black pepper, brown sauce, chili pepper, chili sauce, curry powder, English mustard, French mustard, ginger, gravy powder, herb, MSG/ monosodium glutamate, oil, pickle, salad dressing, salt, sesame seed, stock cube, vinegar)
• Cooking equipment (carving knife, deep fat fryer, grater, kitchen knife, non-stick saucepan, salad bowl, skewer, toothpick, wok)
• Crockery (bowl, dish, mug)
• Cutlery (chopstick/ disposable chopstick)
• Dairy food (blue cheese, butter, duck egg, egg, full-fat/ skimmed milk, parmesan cheese, quail egg, yoghurt, whipped cream)
• Dessert/ Sweet (biscuit/ cookie, cake/ cakes, chocolate/ chocolates, crème caramel, croissant, custard powder, Danish pastry, honey, ice cream, ice lolly, pancake mix)
• Fruit (apple, apricot, cherry, mandarin/ Satsuma/ tangerine, pear, plum, watermelon)
• Hot drink (black/ green tea, herb tea, hot chocolate)
• Ingredient for baking (brown sugar, flour, margarine)
• Meat (bacon, beef, chicken breast, chicken leg, chicken wing, chop, cutlet, duck, fillet, hamburger patty, heart, horse, kidney, lamb, liver, meat ball, mince, mutton, pâté, pork, sausage, tongue, tripe, turkey, veal, wild boar)
• Mexican food (kidney bean, nacho, taco, tortilla, salsa)
• Seafood (cod, crab, eel, fish, fish egg, jellyfish, mackerel, octopus, prawn/ shrimp, scallop, salmon, sea urchin, seaweed, sardine, shellfish, squid, tuna)
• Snack (chestnut, crisp/ chip, peanut, walnut)
• Soft drink (drinking yoghurt, energy drink, fruit juice, fizzy drink/ soda, fizzy water, iced tea/ iced barley tea, soy milk)
• Staple/ Starchy food (bread, bread roll, cereal, chip/ French potato, brown/ white rice, croquette, flour, instant mashed potato, noodle, pasta)
• Vegetable (aubergine/ egg plant, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, courgette/ zucchini, cucumber, garlic, grape, green bean, green pepper, lettuce, mushroom/ champignon, onion, pea, pickled…, potato, pumpkin, soy bean, spinach, spring onion, sweet potato)
• White good (fridge/ refrigerator/ cool box, cooker/ stove, dishwasher, microwave/ microwave oven, kettle, oven, oven toaster, rice cooker)

If you need to or your teacher tells you to, use the quantities on the next page to help with your discussion.

a couple (of)

a few (of)

a little (of)

a lot (of)/ lots (of)

a/ an/ one

bag

block

bottle                               

box                                   

bunch

can/ tin              

carton                              

cube                                

cup                                   

glass

gram                                

(half) a dozen

jar                                     

kilo/ kilogramme                                        

litre                                   

loaf                                   

not many/ much

packet                             

pinch

quite a lot (of)

segment                          

sheet

slice                                 

some

tablespoon                     

teaspoon

tub

Share one thing you agreed on, and see if other people in the class agree. Then ask about any words above you don’t understand, trying to use that vocabulary in a sentence about what you need in the kitchen each time.

Find at least ten foods etc above which can go in each of these questions:

“How many… do we need?”                                   “How much… do we need?”

Which category above is “countable” and which category is “uncountable”? Which of those categories can be followed by “-s”?

Find words to talk about amounts and quantities above which only go with one of those two categories, e.g. “a few”.

Find food etc above which can be both countable and uncountable. Which is more common in each case?