MODAL AUXILARIES AND NOUNS

MODAL AUXILIARIES

The modal auxiliaries have a number of different meanings. They are generally used to indicate something which is potential or uncertain. Remember that modal is an auxilary, and thus is never used with do, does, or did.

The modals include :

Present Tense	Past Tense
Can	Could
May	Might
Will	Would
Shall	Should
Must	Had to

Examples :

She can speak five languages

He could run fast when he was young

May I read your magazine ?

She might be sick today

NOUNS

There are two kinds of nouns :

1. Countable Nouns :

Countable nouns are nouns that can be counted.

Examples : The director buys a new computer

The secretary is typing some files

The big company has three branches in Indonesia

As you can see in the examples, singular countable noun uses a, an or the, and plural countable noun ends in -s/-es. Plural countable noun uses cardinal number or determiner such as some, many, a lot of, etc.

2. Uncountable Nouns :

Uncountable nouns refer to mass nouns that cannot be counted.

Examples : There is too much bad news on television tonight

The hotel provides a good accommodation for the guests

Memorize the words in the following chart :

Countable Nouns	Uncountable Nouns
A, an, the, some, any	The, some, any
This, that, these, those	This, that
None, one, two, three	None
Many	Much
A lot of	A lot of
A large number of	A large number of
A few	A little
Fewer.. than	Less.. than
More.. than	More.. than