Celestine Chua

Here is a mistake that is made a lot, so please have a good look at the difference between kind of and kinds of. When you speak about kind of with more than one thing, you need to use kinds of with an s. If the thing that is described is more than one, you also need to put an s after this word, too. For example: I have different kinds of pens.

Let’s study a few examples:

What kind of pen do you use? I use different kinds.

What kind of fruit do you like? Oh, I like many kinds of fruits.

Another example:

This cafe has the kind of design that I like.

More than one kind of design was used in the new museum.

We get all kinds of children at our nursery school: quiet children, noisy children, children who like to play with their iPads and children who won’t go off their iPads.

– What kind of car do you like? – I like this kind. – What kind is this? – This? It’s a Subaru.

Also check out this cute song by Miranda Lambert: All Kinds of Kinds (Lyrics on screen).

Exercise

Decide between kind (of) or kinds (of).

You can do this exercise online here.

1 There are many __________ apples on the market, but I like only one _________.

2 There are a few different __________ day trips you can take on the island: a helicopter ride, renting a bike, bungee jumping or snorkelling with dolphins.

3 There is only one ___________ ice cream I like and that is lemon sorbet.

4 What’s the best __________ exercise for pregnant women?

5 Sadly, there are few __________ jobs where women earn as much as men.

6 Alone in the desert, I experienced an interesting _____________ loneliness.

7 There are some __________ food that I really don’t want to try.

8 She shows the ____________ behaviour that is hard to like.

9 Pawel and Bimal are really two ____________ people.

10 The beaches along our coast can be divided into two ____________: rocky and sandy.