why is that?

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I am not sure this belongs to this category of questions, i.e. an ESL General English Grammar Questions category, but since this seems fit the best, I will post this question here. Why are the dictionaries are generally divided into two groups, at least to me: those that list countable and uucountable distinctions and those that  list definitions without those distinctions? As to those people more accustomed to the use of those dictionaries without that extra information, how do they go about making those countable and uncountable distinctions?

Khoff · Accepted Answer

Most native speakers (except for linguists and teachers of ESL) never think about "countable" and "uncountable" nouns. I had never heard those terms until I started tutoring ESL students (I was a volunteer; I never had formal training to teach.) A young child might make the mistake of saying "how much books" instead of "how many books," but an adult would just naturally choose the way that "sounded right" without stopping to think "Let's see -- is 'book' a countable or uncountable noun?"

I'm sure there are things in your native language, whatever it may be, that come naturally to native speakers but have to be explained by rules to foreigners who are learning your language. My guess is that grammatical gender is like this for many people. For instance, if I wanted to write something in French I would have to check a dictionary to find out if a word was masculine or feminine, while native speakers of French would just know without even thinking about it.

why is that?

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