4 Basic English Quantifiers: MANY, MUCH, FEW & LITTLE

In one day, how many times to we need to express quantities? I have no idea, really, but probably hundreds. We need to say how much milk or sugar we want with our coffee ☕️; how many push-ups we’ve done at the gym ??; how long it was since we last updated our Facebook profile picture ?, and so on. And there are lots of ways to quantify what we do (actions) or have (nouns). So in today’s video post, I will explain to you the most basic English quantifiers that you have to know: many, much, few and little. But in order to understand what these are, we need to define countable and uncountable nouns. So first things first.

Countable and uncountable nouns

• Countable nouns: countable nouns are those we can quantify using numbers, that is, which can be counted. In this category, we have nouns like table, pen, computer, etc. Note that these nouns can take a plural form.
• Uncountable nouns: uncountable nouns are those we cannot quantify using numbers, that is, which can’t be counted. Some common uncountable nouns are accommodation, sugar, milk, etc.

The reason for explaining countable and uncountable nouns is because depending on whether a noun can be counted or not, we will use one quantifier or another. So now let’s move on to the 4 basic quantifiers I was telling you about.

4 basic English quantifiers

• Used with countable nouns
  • Many: we use «many» with countable nouns to talk about large quantities.
    

    We don’t have many friends who live nearby.
    There are many people at the beach today.

  • Few: we use «few» with countable nouns to talk about small quantities.
    

    There are a few things I don’t like about the house.
    Very few animals survived the fire.

• Used with uncountable nouns
  • Much: we use «much» with uncountable nouns to talk about large quantities in negative sentences or questions.
    

    We won’t cause you much trouble, I promise.
    Did you manage to get much sleep?

  • Little: we use «little» with uncountable nouns to talk about small quantities.
    

    After a little rain, the sun came out.
    There was little time to be lost.

Please note that these uses are the most basic of these four words. What I mean is that there are many other ways in which these four quantifiers can be used which may vary greatly from what you have read in this post. 🙂

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