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How to use to pick a fruit if you only pick one fruit or collect more than one fruit. Should I use the word branch to sound casual or not?

The man ate the apple that he picked (up) from the tree in a garden which he passed by.

The family collected fruit from trees for the first time in this year and ate them together.

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  • Whether or not you mention a branch has nothing to do with how casual the sentence sounds. You can pick one fruit or several. Aug 27, 2020 at 12:51

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Fruit is often treated as non-count. So

He picked fruit from the tree.

It doesn't say how many, not what type of fruit, but we would probably suppose there were many pieces of fruit, perhaps of different types.

If you need to specifically say "one" then

He picked a piece of fruit from the tree.

This is good grammar, but slightly odd, since you would normally just say the type of fruit (since if he picked one you would know what type it was).

He picked an apple from the tree.

Don't say "picked up" That means "collected from the ground". Use "branch" only if that is relevant:

He picked an apple from the highest branch of the tree.

Your first sentence could be better phrased so things are described in order:

As he passed by the garden, the man picked an apple from a tree that stood there. He ate it as he walked on.

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  • James, would you go along with He picked a fruit from the tree rather than he picked a piece of fruit from the tree - allowing that both picking a piece of fruit and picking a fruit are most unusual? Aug 27, 2020 at 13:23

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