Fruit, vegetables and countability

Question

Some (many?) non-native speakers seem to be confused about fruit and vegetables when it comes to countability. I think the confusion is caused by the highlighted letter.

Without making any comments, providing my guesses or airing my opinions, I will post some "fruit" sentences. Could you please convert them to "vegetable" sentences - i.e. change the word fruit + any other word(s) that might be affected by the change?

Here we go:

1. How much fruit shall I buy?
2. How many pieces (servings, helpings) of fruit should we eat daily?
3. Claire eats a lot of fruit.
4. Nell bought a few pieces of fruit.
5. Pears, strawberries, oranges and kiwi are all examples of fruit.

Thanks in advance, as always.

P.S. How is it with kiwi and grapefruit? I don't count kiwi (except when talking about New Zealanders

) and I do count grapefruit(s). I think the latter might be treated both ways, after all.

Inchoateknowledge · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Fruit is either C or U. (like fish)

Pears, strawberries, oranges and kiwis are all examples of fruits.
Nell bought some(a few pieces of) fruit.
Claire eats a lot of fruit/fruits. OK.
How (many pieces (servings, helpings) of) many times shall we eat fruit/fruits per day?
How much fruit shall I buy? ok.
How many fruits means how many kinds, does it not?

Pastsimple · Answer

Hi IK,

I think you've misread my post. The task was to replace fruit with vegetables. But thanks anyway.

And you're right about fruits meaning kinds of fruit.
However, I think I'd say Claire eats many different kinds of fruit instead of Claire eats a lot of fruits. Maybe Claire eats a wide variety of fruit could be OK as well. But that's a bit off-topic now. Let's deal with it later.

Nona the brit · Answer

Native speakers often get round this problem by shortening it to 'veg' for both singular and plural contexts

How many veg shall I get (how many different types of vegetable)

How much veg shall I get (overall quantity).

Do you want some veg with your chicken? (could be a whole range or could be one type).

Nona the brit · Answer

Native speakers often get round this problem by shortening it to 'veg' for both singular and plural contexts

in speech.

How many veg shall I get (how many different types of vegetable)

How much veg shall I get (overall quantity).

Do you want some veg with your chicken? (could be a whole range or could be one type).

Pastsimple · Answer

Nona The BritNative speakers often get round this problem by shortening it to 'veg' for both singular and plural contexts in speech.

How many veg shall I get (how many different types of vegetable) - no "s" here?!

How much veg shall I get (overall quantity). - now that's tricky - vegetable or vegetables?

Do you want some veg with your chicken? (could be a whole range or could be one type).

Good suggestion, Nona. However, could you please try not to use veg just this once?

Pleeeeease!!! [A]
Moreover, I'm told it's not used on the other side of the Atlantic.

FUNNY EDIT: In a language other than English, I'd be probably struggling with a well-developed system of noun declension / verb conjugation, learning tons of endings etc. In English, after all those years, I'm still wondering whether and how I can count veg(etable(s)). As all teachers like to say: English is easy, kids!

Fortunatelly, I do prefer fruit.

Nona the brit · Answer

I guess we avoid the topic as it is a bit tricky really, even for a native speaker.

1. I really would say 'how much veg shall I buy?' The problem here is that it is hard to be clear whether you mean overall quantity or number of different types. But if you insist on the full form - in real life you'll hear people saying 'how many vegetables shall I buy?' or 'How much of these vegetables shall I buy?' or 'How much do you want' or something very vague...

2. How many pieces (servings, helpings) of fruit should we eat daily? How many servings of vegetables should we eat daily?

3. Claire eats a lot of fruit. Claire eats a lot of vegetables. (could mean either types or quantity I suppose, but it suggests different types of veg, rather than a large amount of one type. Whereas with fruit I might say this about someone who eats tons of apples and nothing else).
4. Nell bought a few pieces of fruit. Nell bought a few vegetables. (we don't really say pieces of vegetable).
5. Pears, strawberries, oranges and kiwi are all examples of fruit. Carrots, potatoes and turnips are all examples of vegetables.

I think that if we are talking about one type of veg we just name it, and reserve vegetables for a number of different varieties. We don't really use vegetable singular in these contexts. i.e. How many carrots should I get? Claire eats a lot of carrots. Nell bought a few turnips.

Pastsimple · Answer

Nona The BritI guess we avoid the topic as it is a bit tricky really, even for a native speaker.

1. I really would say 'how much veg shall I buy?' The problem here is that it is hard to be clear whether you mean overall quantity or number of different types. But if you insist on the full form - in real life you'll hear people saying 'how many vegetables shall I buy?' or 'How much of these vegetables shall I buy?' or 'How much do you want' or something very vague...

2. How many pieces (servings, helpings) of fruit should we eat daily? How many servings of vegetables should we eat daily?

3. Claire eats a lot of fruit. Claire eats a lot of vegetables. (could mean either types or quantity I suppose, but it suggests different types of veg, rather than a large amount of one type. Whereas with fruit I might say this about someone who eats tons of apples and nothing else).
4. Nell bought a few pieces of fruit. Nell bought a few vegetables. (we don't really say pieces of vegetable).
5. Pears, strawberries, oranges and kiwi are all examples of fruit. Carrots, potatoes and turnips are all examples of vegetables.

I think that if we are talking about one type of veg we just name it, and reserve vegetables for a number of different varieties. We don't really use vegetable singular in these contexts. i.e. How many carrots should I get? Claire eats a lot of carrots. Nell bought a few turnips.

Thanks, Nona. You've made it much clearer.

we don't really say pieces of vegetable but you do say pieces of fruit, don't you?

Nell bought a few vegetables if I got it right, this would imply that she bought more than one type of veg - say 2 carrots and 3 turnips. Or 3 turnips and 2 carrots. Otherwise you'd say Nell bought a few turnips, right? I did notice you avoided the full word in one type of veg- now which would it be - vegetable or vegetables?

I guess we avoid the topic as it is a bit tricky really, even for a native speaker. I guess you've noticed that many of my posts are tricky.

You've done a great job so far an so have the others.

Anonymous · Answer

Us Canadians don't say "veg".

1. How many vegetables should I buy?
2. How many servings of vegetables should we eat daily?
3. Claire eats a lot of vegetables. This does imply different types of vegetables.
4. Nell bought a few vegetables. I don't think this implies that Neil bought more than one kind of vegetables. if I want to say he bought more than one kind, I say "Neil bought more than one kind of vegetable" or "Neil bought more than one kind of vegetables."
5. Pears, strawberries, oranges and kiwi are all examples of vegetables.

Pastsimple · Answer

AlienvoordClaire eats a lot of vegetables. This does imply different types of vegetables.

Does that imply a big amount as well? Eg. 5 turnips, 10 carrots, a kilo of peas, 20 potatoes a day?
Or just different types? Eg. 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 1 pea and 1 potato a day?

Anonymous · Answer

Gosh, I don't know. I means a lot. You know, a lot. insert smiley here

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Fruit, vegetables and countability

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