Nouns and vocabulary

Objective

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

Things like a chair, a fork, a dog, a horse, a house, a kennel, a girl, a nurse, a boy and a policeman are something that we can see and touch. They exist in reality and are observable. The names for them are 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?

Concrete nouns
Abstract nouns
difficulty
snow
panda
idea
clock
truth
pillar
grass
joy
bed
spoon
happiness

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

Answers

 

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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