Answering Students’

Grammar Questions:
When Do I Use “All of
the,” “All the,” or “All”?
By Tanya Trusler
Tuesday, September 11th, 2012
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Which is correct: all of the people, all the people, or all people?
Give your students this simple explanation.

Not only do students have to contend

with the articlesa, an, and the, but they also have to learn to use many other quantifiers. Words
like all, some, and noneseem simple enough to learn, but when students have to use them with
the, confusion abounds. Hopefully, if you follow the steps below, you will be able to clearly
convey the three different quantifier sentence patterns to your students.

1. First, explain the terms “specific” and “general.”

In English, a specific noun is one that you can see, that there’s only one of, or that you’ve
already mentioned before.
Example: Please pass me the pen that is in front of you.
A general noun is one that you can’t see or that there are many of.
Example: I’m hungry. I wish I had a sandwich.

2. Next, give the three main sentence patterns and explanations for
quantifiers.
(Note: Ns refers to a plural noun or a non-count noun.)

A) ALL OF THE + Ns
Use this pattern when you want to talk about specific nouns.
Example: All of the students in my class studied hard for the test. (plural count noun)
Example: I used all of the paper in my notebook to write my essay. (non-count noun)

B) ALL THE + Ns
Explain to students that this pattern is the casual form of the “all of the + Ns” pattern, where
“of” is simply dropped to shorten the phrase. Most textbooks don’t mention it, but shortening
phrases is very common in English, especially spoken English, and should be taught to your
students.
Example: All the students in my class studied hard for the test. (plural count noun)
Example: I used all the paper in my notebook to write my essay. (non-count noun)

C) ALL + Ns
Use this pattern when you want to talk about general nouns.
Example: All students (in the world) have to take exams. (plural count noun)
Example: Not all water (in the world) is drinkable. (non-count noun)

3. Finally, you can mention that these three patterns also apply to
other quantifiers in English.
Alternatively, you could repeat these rules using different quantifiers on other days, as a review.
I find it helps to give students approximate percentages of amounts, to help them understand
the meaning of each quantifier.
● 100% = All
● 95% = Almost All
● 80% = Many (count nouns), Much (non-count nouns)
● 50% = Some
● 20% = A Few (count nouns), A Little (non-count nouns)
● 5% = Almost None
● 0% = None
Note: Make sure you point out that “almost all” isn’t possible without the “all.” I often hear
students mistakenly saying, “Almost people” or “Almost of the people.” This is also a very
common question in the grammar section of the TOEIC test.
I hope all students benefit from all (of) the info here!
Tanya