a little / a few and little /few
a little salt/little salt
a few people/few people
a little is a small amount, or what the speaker considers a small amount.
a few is a small number, or what the speaker considers a small number.
Only a few of our customers have accounts.
I have quite a few books on art. (= quite a lot of books)
There was little time for consultation.
Little is known about the side effects of this drug.
Few towns have such splendid trees.
We saw little = We saw hardly anything/We didn't see much.
Tourists come here but few stay overnight =
Tourists come here but hardly any stay overnight.
I eat lots of/a lot of apples every day.
Our children had lots of/ a lot of fruit yesterday afternoon.
I've got a lot of/ lots of work to do.
- a little /little are used before uncountable nouns:
a little salt/little salt
- a few/few are used before plural nouns:
a few people/few people
a little is a small amount, or what the speaker considers a small amount.
a few is a small number, or what the speaker considers a small number.
- only placed before a little/a few emphasizes that the number or amount really is small in the speaker's opinion:
Only a few of our customers have accounts.
- But quite before a few increases the number considerably:
I have quite a few books on art. (= quite a lot of books)
- little and few denote scarcity or lack and have almost the force of a negative:
There was little time for consultation.
Little is known about the side effects of this drug.
Few towns have such splendid trees.
- This use of little and few is mainly confined to written English (probably because in conversation little and few might easily be mistaken for a little/a few). In conversation, therefore, little and few are normally replaced by hardly any. A negative verb + much/many is also possible:
We saw little = We saw hardly anything/We didn't see much.
Tourists come here but few stay overnight =
Tourists come here but hardly any stay overnight.
- a lot of/lots of are used before both countable and uncountable nouns to mean a non defined number or amount, that is, they carry the meaning of much and many:
I eat lots of/a lot of apples every day.
Our children had lots of/ a lot of fruit yesterday afternoon.
I've got a lot of/ lots of work to do.
Now, considering the examples on the map from Day Two, answer the following exercises.
Try them first, then go to the key at
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