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What is the difference between a countable noun and uncountable noun?

Countable nouns can be counted (a/one book, two books, a lot of books), whereas uncountable nouns cannot (a/one news, two freedoms). Therefore, uncountable nouns only have singular forms and are followed by singular verbs. We should bear in mind that there are nouns which are uncountable in English but countable in other languages, and vice versa. However, certain kinds of nouns are usually countable or uncountable in English:

Countable nouns

•             persons (a teacher, a child, a gentleman)

•             animals (a butterfly, an elephant, a whale)

•             plants (a flower, a bush, a tree)

•             physical objects (a bag, a pen, a mountain)

•             units (a litre (of), a kind of, a part of, a family, a village, a word)

Uncountable nouns

•             abstract ideas (love, death, beauty)

•             gases (smoke, air, steam)

•             liquids (water, milk, blood)

•             substances and materials (wood, iron, textile)

•             other substances consisting of many small particles (sugar, rice, sand)