Noun forms

Question

According to my textbook if you were to say I fry a sausage you say "Yo frío una salchica" Yet I fry chicken is "Yo frío pollo" and I fry ribs is "Yo frío costillas"

Why do you not use the indefinite article/ plural forms on pollo and indefinite article on costillas? I see that if someone were translating word for word these would be right, but since chicken is plural shouldn't it have an s and the end? I didn't think that Spanish had words that were the same in the plural and singular form, but I guess I'm wrong.

Answer 1

You many want to read the links here especially the one on uncountable nouns.

noun number

Chicken would be a noun that can be treated as either countable or uncountable.

Thanks! Wow its amazing how English is my first language yet I didn't know a thing about countable and uncountable nouns! - Kimbos, Feb 17, 2011

Answer 2

Hmmm, why would chicken or pollo be plural??

However, to say we fry several chickens, that would sound as weird as in Spanish. After all what you actually fry are pieces of chicken

so it is una salchicha ( o dos o tres)

But pollo ( as in ...cinco trozos de pollo) and costillas (as in seven or eight...as you don't count them either... )

Thanks for your help! I guess I was thinking of pieces of chicken not chickens themselves when i said chicken is plural. Silly me :) - Kimbos, Feb 17, 2011