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Speaker 1: Did you know eating healthy foods can make you healthy?

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But I heard that drinking certain wines with cheeses can

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make you happy. Foods, wines, cheeses, let's dive in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from

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New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.

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Speaker 1: All right, thank you John In. Thanks everyone. It's Michael

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here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.

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And this is Happy English Podcast Episode nine oh four.

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How come we say foods, hairs, and freedoms when uncountable

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nouns become plural? Welcome back to another episode of the

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Happy English Podcast. Hey, before we get started, I wanted

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to let you know that the full catalog of the

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Happy English Podcast is now available on YouTube. YEP, that

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means more video episodes and live YouTube episodes. To find it,

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just go to YouTube and search well Happy English Podcast.

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You know, English is a strange language. Sometimes, like words

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that are usually uncountable suddenly show up with an es

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at the end, like foods, cheeses, and wines. Huh, wait

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a minute, aren't those uncountable nouns? Well? Yes, but also no,

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let me show you how it works and why it

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actually makes a lot of sense once you understand the past.

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First up, we have foods. This one's really common. When

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you talk about what people eat. We generally use food

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as an uncountable noun, like I love Mexican food and

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it's important to eat healthy food. But you may hear

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someone say something like you can try different international foods

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at the festival, or this supermarket sells only organic and

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local foods. Here, foods means types of food like Italian food,

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Japanese food, street food. That's why we have a store

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in the States called whole Foods, because whole foods are

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types of healthy, unprocessed food. So food is what we eat,

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and foods refers to types of foods. And speaking of food,

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let's talk about cheese and cheeses. Usually we use cheese

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as an uncountable noun, like David doesn't like to eat cheese,

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or this sandwich has too much cheese. That's cheese as

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a general food, it's uncountable. But then you walk into

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a fancy cheese shop in Manhattan and the guy behind

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the counter says, we have over fifty cheeses from Europe,

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and now it's countable. Cheeses means types or varieties of

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cheese same as this one. France is famous for its cheeses,

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not just cheese in general, but different kinds of cheese.

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And I've heard that in a lot of places, these

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cheeses go with a variety of wines. Yes, we do

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this with wine too. Normally you'd say I don't drink wine,

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or this wine is delicious, or red wine goes with

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beef and white wine goes with chicken. But in a

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restaurant you might see or hear something like we offer

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a wide selection of domestic and imported wines. Wines that

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means different types or brands of wine. So again, when

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we're talking about the general thing wine, it's uncountable. Wh

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you mean different types or varieties we say wines. Let's

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move away from alcoholic drinks and go to one that's

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super common in everyday life. Coffee. You might say I

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drink coffee every morning, just the drink, but in a

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cafe you could say we ordered two coffees. Now, coffee

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means two cups of coffee. And when we talk about drinks,

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we tend to make them countable when we talk about

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the quantity, like, instead of two cups of coffee, I

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drank two coffees, and instead of two glasses of water,

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you can order two waters or two beers if you

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prefer a couple of cold ones. And one more point

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about drinks like coffee and tea. When we refer to

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types of coffee and tea, like we did with wine

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and cheese, the words coffee and tea become countable, like

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they serve specialty coffees from all over the world, or

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the breakfast buffet has several teas from Japan and China, coffees,

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teas types of coffee and tea. And it's not only

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nouns for food that work like this, Like hair, hair

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is a collective noun referring to an entire group of

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similar things, like rice and salt. I can say her

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hair is beautiful, or my hair is getting long. Hair

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hair is uncountable. We're talking about all of it on

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your head as one thing, but we can use the

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plural form hairs when we refer to one, two, or three,

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like at the restaurant, I said to the waiter, there

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are two hairs in my soup ew or I found

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three gray hairs this morning. When we focus on the

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individual strands, hair becomes countable. You can actually count the hairs,

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hopefully not too many gray hairs. Okay. Next is beauty.

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Beauty is usually an idea, right, like I love the

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beauty of nature, or her beauty took my breath away.

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But then you might hear someone say the tour guide

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showed us the natural beauties of the seashore, or this

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movie celebrates the great beauties of Hollywood's Golden Age. So

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beauties means specific people, places, or things that are beautiful,

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not the idea of beauty itself. One more idea is freedom.

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This is a bit more abstract, but you'll see it

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in news or politics. We talk about freedom of speech,

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freedom of religion, and the idea that everyone deserves freedom.

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Freedom is a general idea, but we can also say

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things like we must protect our freedoms of speech, religion,

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and press. Or I appreciate the freedoms that this country

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has given me. Now it's countable, like wine and cheese.

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Freedoms refers to specific types of freedom. Are you still

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with me? I know it's a lot to digest, so

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let's recap. In English, some uncountable nouns become countable when

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we talk about types or varieties, like cheeses, wines, coffees, foods,

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individual pieces, hairs, and examples of equality, beauty's freedoms. It's

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not just a grammar rule, it's a way of being

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more specific and descriptive in English. So here's your challenge

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this week. Try noticing when uncountable nouns show up with

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an s. Look at menus, magazines, or signs in stores,

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pay attention to the details, and hey, maybe even try

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one yourself. And remember, if you want to practice this

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with me and a group of awesome learners, come check

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out the podcast Learner's Study Group. We meet once a

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week and dig into the language from these podcast episodes together.

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Just head to Myhappy English dot com and check out

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episode nine to oh four for all the info. Thanks

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for listening, and remember, learning another language is not easy,

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but it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you

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on your journey.

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Speaker 2: This podcast is brought to you by Happy English. Please

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visit Myhappy English dot com show your support for Happy

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English by leaving us a review. Get English, Get Happy,

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Happy English.

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Speaker 1: S