Good and bad Valentine’s countable and uncountable speaking

Good and bad Valentine’s countable and uncountable speaking

Lead-in speaking

What would be a perfect Valentine’s Day for you? What would be the worst?

Countable and uncountable grammar presentation

Which of the two options on each line below would be better on Valentine’s Day/ make more sense on Valentine’s Day?

• lots of love/ lots of lovers
• receiving lots of card/ receiving lots of cards
• some chocolate/ some chocolates
• a date/ some data
• some flour/ some flowers
• some jewellery/ some jewels
• a romantic meal/ some romantic meal
• some romance/ some romances
• a surprise/ some surprise

Match words above to these meanings, and use that to check your answers above:

• a bar of chocolate (or chocolate broken off from a bar)
• a feeling of shock
• boyfriends, girlfriends, etc
• breakfast, lunch, or dinner
• diamonds, rubies, etc
• hard, thick paper, like thin cardboard
• individual sweets, often with different fillings (strawberry, toffee, liqueur, etc)
• meeting up with someone who you are interested in romantically, e.g. to go to the cinema together
• necklaces, rings, etc
• one or more romantic things
• romantic relationships, e.g. three different girlfriends
• something unexpected such as a gift that is shockingly expensive
• statistics/ figures/ numbers
• things sent at Xmas, for birthdays, etc, with greetings from the sender
• white powder made from wheat that is used in baking

Check as a class.

Which words above are countable? Which are uncountable?

Which quantifiers in the left-hand column below could go with those countable nouns? Which can go with uncountable nouns? Which can go with both?

 

Good and bad Valentine’s countable and uncountable controlled speaking

Choose suitable quantifiers and nouns from the table below to describe the best or worst Valentine’s Day, and see if your partner agrees.

The best Valentine’s Day would include   The worst Valentine’s Day would include

no a/ an one a couple of a few a little not much not many some a lot of many so much so many a huge number of a huge amount of

alcohol/ champagne argument/ fight/ row balloon bouquet candle(lit meal) candy (anonymous) card chocolate compliment confession date email/ (love) letter ex flashmob flirting flower gift/ present gold in-law jealousy jewel/ diamond jewellery lie/ lying lingerie marriage/ wedding matchmaker/ matchmaking meal (live/ harp) music(ian) perfume phone call photo/ selfie poem/ poetry promise/ vow proposal/ engagement ring romance rom-com rose speech stuffed animal/ teddy bear sympathy/ commiseration tattoo tear/ crying violinist

(-s) (-es) (-ies)