Learn English Grammar: 10 Types of Nouns

Learn about the 10 types of nouns in English, including common, proper, singular, plural, concrete, abstract, and collective nouns with clear examples.

Key Takeaways

Nouns are more diverse than just person, place, and thing; there are 10 types.
Proper nouns are capitalized and refer to specific entities.
Plural nouns can be regular (adding 's' or 'es') or irregular (changing the word form).
Concrete nouns can be sensed physically, while abstract nouns represent intangible ideas.
Collective nouns describe groups and are important for understanding noun usage.

What the video covers

Introduction to nouns beyond the basic person, place, and thing concept.
Explanation of the 10 different categories of nouns using a mind map flower analogy.
Common nouns represent everyday objects and things.
Proper nouns name specific people, places, or things and are capitalized.
Singular nouns refer to one item, while plural nouns refer to more than one, including regular and irregular forms.
Concrete nouns can be experienced with the five senses, while abstract nouns represent ideas or concepts.
Collective nouns describe groups or collections of people or things.
Examples given include 'canyon', 'girl', 'house', 'White House', 'cat', 'foot', 'person', 'people', and 'democracy'.
Discussion on capitalization rules and the importance of understanding noun types for better writing and communication.
Encouragement for both native and non-native speakers to brush up on noun knowledge.

Chapters

What are the 10 types of nouns discussed in the video?

The video explains ten types of nouns including common, proper, singular, plural, concrete, abstract, and collective nouns, among others.

How can you tell the difference between a common noun and a proper noun?

Proper nouns name specific people, places, or things and are always capitalized, while common nouns refer to general items or concepts and are not capitalized.

What is the difference between regular and irregular plural nouns?

Regular plural nouns form their plural by adding 's' or 'es', while irregular plural nouns change the word form entirely, such as 'foot' becoming 'feet'.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Hi. James from engVid. Today, I'd like to discuss person, place, and thing. Yeah, that's right. E... Okay. Today, we're going to talk about nouns. Today, what I would like to let you know is there are ten nouns. "E" is referring to the fact that most of us have been taught...

Speaker A

I'm a native speaker, and actually, I was born in England, live in Canada. I was taught it's person, place, and thing. That was our basic education for it. But there are actually ten different categories of nouns. And today, we're going to take a deep dive, and I mean

Speaker A

I'm a native speaker, and actually, I was born in England, live in Canada. I was taught it's person, place, and thing. That was our basic education for it. But there are actually ten different categories of nouns. And today, we're going to take a deep dive, and I mean

Speaker A

Let's go to the board. All right, so, as you can see, I have my weird flower here. This is actually a mind map. I made it like a flower because with the petals, each petal tells a different story. And when I go through each one, it'll help you remember. So, it may look

Speaker A

go deep into it, separate them so that it will help you become a better writer and communicator in English. This is actually a good brush up for native speakers as well. All right?

Speaker A

Let's start off with number one. There are ten types of nouns. The most common one we have - and I use the word "common", it's called a common noun - are things in everyday life.

Speaker A

Let's go to the board. All right, so, as you can see, I have my weird flower here. This is actually a mind map. I made it like a flower because with the petals, each petal tells a different story. And when I go through each one, it'll help you remember. So, it may look

Speaker A

A canyon is the other way. It goes... It dips down. Okay? So, think of a mountain reversed where the land is here and there's kind of a hole in it. Okay? A canyon. And "girl".

Speaker A

a little bit weird now, but by the time we're done, it'll be in your mind.

Speaker A

When we move to the second petal, we have what's called proper nouns. This is when we are talking about specific examples of these things. What do I mean? Well, you can have a house, but we all know, or most of the people on the planet know, of the White House in

Speaker A

Let's start off with number one. There are ten types of nouns. The most common one we have - and I use the word "common", it's called a common noun - are things in everyday life.

Speaker A

well, by the way. They capitalize nouns, so you know this is a thing in the sentence, so you know its function. Just a little aside, because knowledge is power. Anyway. So, my house becomes the White House. That's right. Second black president. Not going to happen.

Speaker A

An example of this is "house", "a canyon". If you think of a mountain, it goes like this.

Speaker A

mountains. You could put a mountain in that hole. Okay? Notice the capitalization. And I put "Nino", because Nino is a girl, but she's a specific girl, so she has to have a capital. Kind of cool? So, now we have common and proper, knowing that common is everyday

Speaker A

A canyon is the other way. It goes... It dips down. Okay? So, think of a mountain reversed where the land is here and there's kind of a hole in it. Okay? A canyon. And "girl".

Speaker A

than one? Well, I've got plus one, and we've got plural nouns. Now, the interesting thing about a plural noun is it's not just one, because you can have, see, "marker" becomes "markers". That's more than one. We add an "s". Sometimes we add an "es" to the end of

Speaker A

These are everyday objects and items. Well, maybe not a canyon, but you understand what I'm saying. There's nothing special about them. They're generic.

Speaker A

an "es", but it might be very different indeed. Notice here I have "cat". If you have more than one cat, you'll have "cats". That would be a regular... That would be a regular plural verb. But then I have "foot". Some of my students would say, "Oh, teacher, you have foot? Then

Speaker A

When we move to the second petal, we have what's called proper nouns. This is when we are talking about specific examples of these things. What do I mean? Well, you can have a house, but we all know, or most of the people on the planet know, of the White House in

Speaker A

So, irregular verbs take on the form of, like for instance, a "tooth", one "tooth" becomes "teeth". Right? They are different in nature that you cannot just add an "s" to it, you actually have to change the word. All right? Another one could be "person". It's one person.

Speaker A

the United States of America where the President is. You'll notice that the difference between a proper noun and a common noun is capitalization. There is a capital put on the words. We use it to say... Sorry. These are very specific words. They do this in German language as

Speaker A

documentation and in elevators. I don't make the language up, I'm just here to explain it to you. All right? Otherwise, it's "person" is one, "people" is the plural.

Speaker A

well, by the way. They capitalize nouns, so you know this is a thing in the sentence, so you know its function. Just a little aside, because knowledge is power. Anyway. So, my house becomes the White House. That's right. Second black president. Not going to happen.

Speaker A

In this case, a "concrete noun" is one that you can have with your senses. You can see it with your eyes, you can smell it, you can taste it, you can touch it. All right? Did I miss one? You can hear it. These are "concrete nouns". Examples of "concrete nouns" are apples,

Speaker A

Okay. Now, also, "canyon", I talked about that. Well, in the United States of America, several millions of people visit the Grand Canyon. It is one of the biggest canyons in the world, and people go to visit it. I mean, some of these places are almost like reverse

Speaker A

right now, all the times I've been talking to you about plural nouns, single, proper and common nouns, I've been basically talking about "concrete nouns". All right?

Speaker A

mountains. You could put a mountain in that hole. Okay? Notice the capitalization. And I put "Nino", because Nino is a girl, but she's a specific girl, so she has to have a capital. Kind of cool? So, now we have common and proper, knowing that common is everyday

Speaker A

"Anger", right? So, when people say, "Okay, anger, what is that?" Well, it's a noun. He can have anger, right? You can be angry, descriptive, but you can have anger. "Noun". Oh, yeah, it's a noun. And also, "ideas". "Democracy". It's an idea. It's a noun. All right?

Speaker A

things like camera, right, versus Nikon camera, which would be a proper noun. Now, let's look at single nouns. You notice I have the number one. A single noun is any one thing. Singular. Cat. Man. Marker. Right? Easy enough. What happens when we have more

Speaker A

institutions to protect law and order, but you can't say, "That's democracy. I can show you and hold it to you and give it to someone." It's an idea that we use in different means, and you can see examples of it, but you can't say, "Here is this democracy. I give it to

Speaker A

than one? Well, I've got plus one, and we've got plural nouns. Now, the interesting thing about a plural noun is it's not just one, because you can have, see, "marker" becomes "markers". That's more than one. We add an "s". Sometimes we add an "es" to the end of

Speaker A

Number seven. This is going by fast. "Collective". If you watch Star Trek, the collective is the Borg. The Borg is a collective, but we live now, unfortunately. And any collective is a group. If you have a crowd, these are collective nouns, groupings of things, usually

Speaker A

the word, right? Those are what we call regular plural nouns. So, what's the irregular one you're asking? This is what I was saying. This is even good for native speakers. An irregular plural noun is something where we don't add an "s" or

Speaker A

just lost lots of respect for me now. He doesn't know. Sorry, I do other things. Play chess.

Speaker A

an "es", but it might be very different indeed. Notice here I have "cat". If you have more than one cat, you'll have "cats". That would be a regular... That would be a regular plural verb. But then I have "foot". Some of my students would say, "Oh, teacher, you have foot? Then

Speaker A

the team, which is an article that says something specific and singular, but we know it's made up of more than one person. Yeah? And the crowd, it was the largest crowd in inaugural history in the United States in 2016. All right? It wasn't the largest crowd. It was

Speaker A

you have the feet, the foots." Right? I'm like, "No, you have feet." You will notice that the "feet" is very different. It has an "eet", there is no extra "s" or extra "es".

Speaker A

Moving on. Compound nouns. These are your interesting ones, and you'll notice I have this little minus sign. It's not a negative sign. It's not a minus sign. It's a hyphen sign, and I've got to be honest. I've got to be honest. I am the worst with that because

Speaker A

So, irregular verbs take on the form of, like for instance, a "tooth", one "tooth" becomes "teeth". Right? They are different in nature that you cannot just add an "s" to it, you actually have to change the word. All right? Another one could be "person". It's one person.

Speaker A

with a hyphen, which means two words put together, like "dry-cleaning", or something that you would never think about that we say all the time, "bookstore". "Bookstore" is a combination of two words. The reason for the two words is to give a greater descriptive power. Yes,

Speaker A

"People". What? Yeah, one person, five people. There's no "s", it's not "persons". Actually, there's an exception that I'll go into another time when you go into elevators. That's in another lesson I actually did before. Only place you actually see "persons" is on legal

Speaker A

stores, there are bookstores, there are computer stores, but I need to get books, so I want to go to something well-defined, "bookstore". And that's the use of compound words.

Speaker A

documentation and in elevators. I don't make the language up, I'm just here to explain it to you. All right? Otherwise, it's "person" is one, "people" is the plural.

Speaker A

word. [Laughs] I doubt it. Okay. Now, the last two I want to talk about is something that most people learn, funny enough, as English learners, but native speakers don't necessarily know. I know it sounds odd, but it's something we just know internally, but we don't actually think about consciously.

Speaker A

We talked about regular... I'm sorry, plural and singular and proper and common nouns. Let's go to this one, "concrete nouns". What's a "concrete noun"? Well, this wall I'm working with is made of concrete, so people will tell you it's where you drive your car or the sidewalk.

Speaker A

these parts, anyway. Okay? Things you can actually count. Now, I'm going to give you - oh, no, that's later on. I've got my bonus section. I've got something interesting for you. It's tasty. You'll like it. Things you can count, anything

Speaker A

In this case, a "concrete noun" is one that you can have with your senses. You can see it with your eyes, you can smell it, you can taste it, you can touch it. All right? Did I miss one? You can hear it. These are "concrete nouns". Examples of "concrete nouns" are apples,

Speaker A

"I got you covered." All right? So, generally, things that we touch and play with a lot are countable nouns. We can go back to our house, our girl, our cat, our teeth. They're all countable.

Speaker A

cats, roses, because you can smell a rose as well as see it. These are "concrete". They're in the physical world. Now, what about other nouns? And this is when people have a problem with writing on how to address them, because we have other nouns, and sorry, I should say,

Speaker A

too much money in the world to actually count. In fact, if the average person wanted to count a billion dollars, one dollar at a time, you would die before you could count it. One dollar at a time. Too much. But you would die happy. One for me, one for you. One for me, one for

Speaker A

right now, all the times I've been talking to you about plural nouns, single, proper and common nouns, I've been basically talking about "concrete nouns". All right?

Speaker A

studying English. All right? Now, giving you this doesn't mean anything if you can't use it. So, let's go to the board. For the second time, I'm going to do our quiz. Are you ready?

Speaker A

When we move over, and this is where people have difficulties with the language, especially people learning it, is with abstract nouns. These are ideas, and these are emotions. "Anger".

Speaker A

as per usual. All right? So, let's go to the board and do our quiz.

Speaker A

"Anger", right? So, when people say, "Okay, anger, what is that?" Well, it's a noun. He can have anger, right? You can be angry, descriptive, but you can have anger. "Noun". Oh, yeah, it's a noun. And also, "ideas". "Democracy". It's an idea. It's a noun. All right?

Speaker A

intelligence, democracy. You can't use them with your five senses. What kind of nouns are these? Mm-hmm. Remember I told you I work in a place where we got concrete floors? Well, when something's not concrete, it is abstract ideas. Right? And these are things you cannot

Speaker A

Next, we go from these things... Oh, sorry, I should also say, these are things that you cannot use your five senses, and that's where we can tell the difference here. You cannot see democracy. You can see examples of democracy. You can see people vote, right? You can see

Speaker A

What about this one, number two? Nouns that describe a group of things. A team, a crowd, a committee. I didn't give you committee before. I like this word, committee. It's really strange to me because you look, it's got two M's, two T's, and two E's. It's a weird English

Speaker A

institutions to protect law and order, but you can't say, "That's democracy. I can show you and hold it to you and give it to someone." It's an idea that we use in different means, and you can see examples of it, but you can't say, "Here is this democracy. I give it to

Speaker A

from different areas of a company that would get together and talk about the safety of a building and the health of the workers there. Right? So, in case you don't know the word committee. Crowd, group of people, and a team can be anything from a professional sports

Speaker A

you." Okay? And that's the difference between a concrete idea, an apple, which I can give you, and an idea like anger. You can see an example of it, but it cannot be touched, tasted, da-da-da. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker A

come together, and they're a single noun. Don't forget. Even though they represent plural things, it's a singular noun. You don't talk about team because you can say teams, and that means a group, but more, like five, six of these particular groups. Right?

Speaker A

Number seven. This is going by fast. "Collective". If you watch Star Trek, the collective is the Borg. The Borg is a collective, but we live now, unfortunately. And any collective is a group. If you have a crowd, these are collective nouns, groupings of things, usually

Speaker A

Very specific. That's why I've got a capital, here. Now, back to you. Now, these are called... English people will love me when I say this, and I mean English from England. They're called proper nouns. It's a proper noun. It's not like those other

Speaker A

people, but groups. You can have what? You can have a collective of a team. If you've got 10 people playing on a team, I don't know any sports, really, so I don't know what team has 10 people. Nine people on a baseball team, I think. I think. Anyway, and everyone has

Speaker A

I was in England, and there was this lady, and she was talking a lot, and there's a couple behind me from... They were British, and this one guy turns to this woman, and I'm hearing it, and I'm almost laughing. He said, "That woman talks way too much. She deserves a proper

Speaker A

just lost lots of respect for me now. He doesn't know. Sorry, I do other things. Play chess.

Speaker A

Anyway, next. And for my Russian friends who hate when I joke, it's fun for me to do this, and it makes it fun for other students. Learning should be a fun experience, right? You still can learn and have fun. Next. Nouns made up of two words. Now, I'm going to talk a little

Speaker A

Anyway, so team is about a group. A crowd is a group, a collection of people. So even though it's a single thing, a crowd is made up of many things, and that's important to notice when you talk about it. When you can say "America's team", t

Speaker A

or two. Some of you are like, "So I have dry cleaning today, and in three days it becomes just dry cleaning. Is this what happens? Yeah, this is crazy." No. I'm talking 50, 100, 200 years, okay? We have to use it a lot. But the new word that's created, this is a compound

Speaker A

noun. As you can see, it still says "book", and it still says "store". It's just together because we use it so often we don't bother hyphenating and wasting time. That takes time.

Speaker A

So, a hyphenated word is a compound word, and if you see a word like this, it is also a compound noun. Okay, just making sure you get that. All right, so... Oh, damn it. Oh, no. I told you. If you were listening carefully, I told you the answer. I didn't want to. I

Speaker A

didn't. Really, I didn't. It was that proper slap, see? I got a proper slap, knocked me out about, all right? So I lost it. It's a compound noun, all right?

Speaker A

And finally, nouns that you can count. Nouns you can count on. Yeah, you like that? Nouns you can count on. When you can count on something, you can trust or rely. So if you say, "I can count on my brother", I can. Nicky's a good guy. It means I can trust and rely on him.

Speaker A

If you can count on, I don't know, your boss, maybe, then they'll pay you for sure, okay?

Speaker A

Nouns you can count. What are those? Those are the easiest ones. Yeah. Almost everybody knows these ones. Countable. They're countable nouns. Your apples, your houses, and everything else. Cool? Great. If you got that, you did really, really, really well. Still got to

Speaker A

go do the quiz at engVid, though. I'm not letting you off the hook. Speaking of hooks, I got fishes up here. I'm just a funny guy. Let's start with a bonus. Pants and glasses.

Speaker A

Do you remember I told you that when we go from a singular to a plural noun, we add an S, and that's how we can tell the difference? And I told you about the irregular nouns, yada, yada, yada. And then there's this. Boom. And now you're going to say, "Well, this must

Speaker A

be multiple pants", right? To multiple glasses. No. Something I used to say to my students all the time. So, you have to listen to the whole thing I say. I would tell them, "English is a very stupid language." Now, the people who weren't really students would laugh, and

Speaker A

laugh, and laugh, and just kept laughing. "This teacher is so stupid." Then they wouldn't let me finish. I'd go, "You have to say everything." Right? Meaning that in our language, we like a lot of exposition. We like to say a lot to explain it. And in this case, I gave you

Speaker A

an example, add an S, but now I got to say the rest of it. That's not always the case.

Speaker A

When you look at words like "pants" and "glasses", it's very specific. For instance, example, "Pants used to be like this." This would be one pant leg, but you can't walk around unless you want to get arrested with one pant leg on, so you have to add another one. So, this

Speaker A

becomes "pants" because this and this, but it's one pair. It's only one item. And "glasses".

Speaker A

If you have bad eyes and two eyes, you can't... Well, they used to wear one called a "monocle", but generally you have one and two to correct both eyes, and then they're called "glasses", because it's actually describing what it is. It's two things joined as one. This is a singular

Speaker A

item, even though it says "pants", even though it says "glasses". If someone said, "I left my glasses at home", they do not have 20 pieces of little glasses they pick up and carry with them wherever they go. They're talking about the things they put on their eyes because

Speaker A

they're two of them that have to be together as a unit. The same thing goes with "pants".

Speaker A

And "shorts". Wow, in the summertime when it gets hot and people start wearing shorts and they've got those nice legs and they're walking in their shorts. Yeah, anyway. "Shorts" because it's two legs and the pants, they're short pants. Yeah. Anyway, so these are singular

Speaker A

items. Don't get confused by that, okay? "Fish". "Fish" is interesting because last night I had fish for dinner, and in Lake Ontario there are many fish. And you're going, "Teacher, you're a bad teacher. You don't know difference.

Speaker A

Difference is fish, yeah?" No. "Fish" is both singular and plural form. "Teacher, you're not smart. You put fishes in red, too." Here's one for you, and I'm going to give you an extra bonus one because that's the type of guy I am and that's the way the day is going.

Speaker A

"People" is plural, but it's singular. However, you can also have "peoples". Why, I say. Aha.

Speaker A

Well, "people" is a collective noun, but on the planet Earth there are many peoples. That means groups of people. And to tell you that, we have to add the "s" that it's not just one group, but I'm talking about many groups of peoples. The peoples of the Earth. They're

Speaker A

not talking about Canadians, or the French, or Zimbabweans. Singularly, they're talking about all of these groups. They are not the same, and we have to identify them. They are different groups of people, and they are the peoples of the world.

Speaker A

The same happens with fishes. Okay. There's haddock. You're going to know why I was born in English. There's haddock. There's cod. I don't know those other funky fishes. I just like me fish and chips, eh? Okay? So, there are different types of fishes, and when we

Speaker A

talk about the fishes of the world, it's similar to the peoples of the world. There are different types of fishes. So, fishes... Like, one group of fish are called "fish". There are many fish, like salmon. Fish. Right? But if you want to talk about salmon, haddock, cod, battered

Speaker A

in beer, deep fried for five minutes, delicious. Then there are fishes, because we're talking about the different types of groups. Cool? So, that's a confusing one for even... I would say, yeah, even peoples. I've heard natives go, "You can't say peoples." I'm like, "You

Speaker A

can." But it's very, very specific situations. The same works with fishes. And there's your bonus. Okay? Cool.

Speaker A

Oh, yes. It is homework time. You know, because this is like a full class here, we give you the lesson, we give you extra stuff to take away and chew on and digest and learn. Then we have to give you homework, like everyone should get homework today. And today's homework

Speaker A

will be worth 100 points each. You get 100 points for every student who sees your homework and gives a thumbs up if it's on, I think, YouTube, or if it's on the engVid website and you get a thumbs up or a check mark, whatever. It's worth 100 points. You can give yourself

Speaker A

a pat on the back, because you are smart. All right? First question you have to answer is, "Please give me..." Now, hmm, I have some an assault.

Speaker A

You have to figure out what kind of noun it is, then you'll know how to answer that, because these are determiners and they're going to tell you how to use it. Right? Assault, you have to figure out what kind of noun it is, then you'll know which determiner, because

Speaker A

"a" means one and "some" means, you know, a grouping, not necessarily counted. Oh, good luck with that one.

Speaker A

And how about this one here? There's James with a small "j" and James with a capital "j", and Mr. E with a small "e" and Mr. E with a big "e", they're friends. Which one should you use? Now, you've got to figure out what kind of noun it is, then you'll know

Speaker A

if you should use a capital or not a capital. Right? Anyway, you're the experts now, I've taught you all I can, so grasshopper, it is up to you.

Speaker A

Before we go, I want to say this one. Please don't forget to press "like" if you like the video, because we're at the end and you're still here, so maybe you liked it, I think so. And subscribe if you've watched more than two videos, whether it be myself or Ronnie

Speaker A

or any of the other people that we have, you should subscribe already, because clearly you want the information that we're giving it to you. It's for free and it's pretty good, I would say. Not in my case, but... Because I'm modest that way. But all the other teachers

Speaker A

are brilliant, you're going to love them. Right? Don't forget to, as I said, subscribe. Please hit the notification, there's a little bell, if you ding that bell, you'll get everything I do right away, so as soon as it comes out,

Speaker A

it'll be right in your email box or phone or whatever you use. Don't forget to go to www.vidasinvideo.com, where there is a bigger quiz and other lessons on grammar for nouns, commas, and what have you. Right? Anyway, it's been a pleasure. I'm James, that's my

Speaker A

proper noun, with a capital. I'll help you on your quiz. Anyway, have a good one, I'll see you soon.

Topics:English grammartypes of nounscommon nounsproper nounssingular nounsplural nounsconcrete nounsabstract nounscollective nounsengVid

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