My tuition students are driving me crazy.

I caught one of them saying ‘two waters’ during yesterday’s English lesson. I stopped him and asked him if you could count water.

To my horror, he nodded, pointed at my glass of water, and then at his, and said brightly, “Can! One water, two waters. There. Can count water what.”

I had to patiently explain countable and uncountable nouns to him all over AGAIN despite the fact that he learned about them approximately two years ago. When I tried to explain that sand was NOT a countable noun, and thus, should be used with ‘a lot of’, ‘ a little’, or ’some’, instead of with ‘many’, he objected, insisting that ’sands’ was a valid word.

“What about Costa Sands? My parents brought me there in June.”

Argh. ( And your parents didn’t ‘bring’ you there! You went there.)

Well, you can’t say I don’t work hard for my paycheck.