Nouns and vocabulary

Objective

To explore the meaning of simple, everyday nouns, and how they relate to your experience of the world.

Nouns like a chair, a fork, a dog, a horse, a house, a kennel, a girl, a nurse, a boy and a policeman are all things that we can see and touch. They exist in reality and are observable. They are all examples of concrete nouns.

Other nouns refer to things which we cannot see or touch like happiness or time. Such nouns are abstract nouns.

The box below contains concrete nouns and abstract nouns. Can you sort them into the correct group?

Another type of concrete noun are those naming places.

How many different words for places can you think of in a minute? 

Here are some familiar names denoting places. Can you match them with their descriptions?

Answers

Look around the classroom and talk to your partner.

• How many concrete nouns can you see?
• How many abstract nouns can you think of? 

This lesson is adapted (with permission) from Words and Meanings: A Systematic Guide for the Teaching of English Vocabulary, by Gabriele Stein.

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