How to use ‘no’ and ‘none’ in English?

The words no and none both tell you that the amount of something is zero. In general, the difference is simple: use no before a noun and use none to replace a noun (as a pronoun)

But there is more to learn if you want to use these words correctly! In this post, we will first look at the difference between no and none, then we’ll look individually at all of the uses of each of these words in English.

That may sound like a lot, but there is no reason you can’t figure these two words out. None of the rules are too hard!

The words no and none have the same meaning (a zero amount) but different grammar. Here’s a chart that shows their basic grammar points:

As you can see:

• No describes a noun. This means that no is a quantifying adjective.

• None acts in place of a noun. This means none is an indefinite pronoun.

But, there’s more to learn! Let’s look at all the uses of these two words in detail to get a better understanding of the grammar, and what they mean when you use them.

There are three main ways to use the word no in English, but in this post, we’ll focus just on the third use:

1. As a negative answer to a basic yes / no question:

   Speaker A:

   Are you a teacher?

   Speaker B:

   No. / No, I’m not.

2. Before an English comparative adjective, to mean not:

   • Patrick is no taller than Susan.

     Patrick is not taller than Susan.
   • Susan is no more intelligent than Patrick.

     Patrick is not more intelligent than Susan.

3. Before a noun, to say that the amount is zero → THIS is the topic of the current post!

   • There are no books on the table.

     Zero books are on the table.
   • No milk is in the glass.

     Zero milk is in the class.

Let’s look a little more closely at all the different ways you can use no + noun!

There are two main ways to use the word none in English:

• Use none instead of no + noun

  • There are no books. → There are none.

  • There is no whole milk. → There is none.

  Notice the verb! None can be singular or plural, depending on what it replaces!

• Use none + of + noun, to mean: no noun from a set, mass, collection, or group

  • My dog ate no food from her dinner. → My dog ate none of her dinner.

  • No children from my children like broccoli. → None of my children like broccoli.

  The noun that comes after none of needs to describe a specific group, collection, mass, or set. This means that it will almost always start with a definite article (the), a possessive adjective (my, your, his, their...), or a demonstrative adjective (this, those...). These are all called definite determiners.

  none of

  

  definite determiner

  

  noun phrase

  None of these books is a history book.

  I ate none of the oatmeal in my bowl .

  If you already talked about the group, collection, mass, or set, you can use a pronoun instead.

  none of

  

  (object) pronoun

  These cakes? I baked none of them.

  This oatmeal? I ate none of it.

  I did eat some of my cookies, but I ate none of yours.

Remember that because we use none like we use no + noun, similar rules apply:

• Do not use none in a sentence with a negative verb.

• Using none in a question shows surprise.

In both of the main uses of none, none replaces a noun, so we therefore say that none is a pronoun. Specifically, it is an indefinite pronoun.

The words no and none are really useful. In this post you've seen that:

• Both no and none can mean zero.

  • We use no before a noun (There is no candy left.)

  • We use none to replace no + noun:

    • by itself (There are none left.)

    • with of + group, collection, mass, set (None of the candy is left.)

• It is best to use no and none in sentences with positive verbs, and avoid using them in questions.

• No + noun on a sign means that something is not allowed.

The best way to get these words into your everyday English is to practice them. Why not check out these activities on the words no and none? You’ll find they’re easy once you’ve repeated them a bit.