I'm trying to pass a test on "Articles exercise" as they call it on the EnglishGrammar site. Reviewing my answers I got stuck about the two I posted on the picture below.
As I understand both words are uncountable (according to the Cambridge Dictionary), so it looks like (or said for example here in a guide to learning English from Frankfurt International School) I can't say a/an with an uncountable noun.
But this test says the opposite. Is there some trick? Or am I just dumb? Please help me to understand why I need to use "a" article in these cases?
We need a secretary with ____ good knowledge of English.
- a (marked as the correct answer)
- the
- a / the
- no article is needed (the answer I think is correct)
We're having ____ terrible weather.
- a (marked as the correct answer)
- the
- a / the
- no article is needed (the answer I think is correct)
Answer
Unfortunately, I don't know if there's any solid rule you can use to explain why "a good knowledge of English" is correct. You are right that "knowledge" is an uncountable noun, but in this particular usage the idiomatic way to express it is with the "a". It's possible that the idiom distinguishes between "a knowledge of English" and other kinds of knowledge, or other degrees of knowledge, rather than just talking about the amount of knowledge.
Still, again, it's hard to pinpoint which nouns work like this, and which don't. Also, "knowledge" isn't the only uncountable noun where this applies:
I hear you have a good intuition about the future
I hope you have a clear understanding of what I mean.
They're trying to find someone with a good insight into the stock market.
It may be yet another case where you just have to memorize these exceptions as you come across them.
Anyway, as mentioned in the above comments, the given answer to the second question might be OK in some dialects, but "We're having terrible weather" is also correct.
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