LANGUAGE CENTER – TACNA

QUANTIFIERS – HIGH INTERMEDIATE LEVEL

We use a lot of/ lots of / plenty of with uncountable and plural nouns:

A lot of luck lots of time plenty of money

A lot of friends lots of people plenty of ideas

Plenty= more than enough:

 There`s no need to hurry. We have plenty of time.
 I`ve had plenty to eat. I don`t want any more.

You can use many in positive sentences, but a lot (of) is more usual in spoken English:

 A lot of people (or Many people) drive too fast.

But note that we use too much and so much in positive sentences:

 We spent too much money

Little and few (without “a”) are negative ideas (=not much/not many):
 We must be quick. There is little time. (=not much time, not enough time)
 He isn`t popular. He has few friends. (=not many, not enough friends)

You can say very little and very few:

 There is very little time.

 He has very few friends.

A little and A few are more positive. A little=some, a small amount:

 Let`s go and have a drink. We have a little time before the train leaves.
(a little time=some time, enough time to have a drink)
 Do you speak English? A little. ( so we can talk a bit)

Note that “only a little” and “only a few” have a negative meaning:

 We must be quick. We only have a little time.

 The village was very small. There were only a few houses

Form: TOO and ENOUGH

too + adjective or adverb

too much/many + noun
too much/many + of + pronoun/determiner

adjective or adverb + enough

enough + noun
enough + of + pronoun/determiner

By teacher David Núñez V.

 LANGUAGE CENTER – TACNA

Meaning

1. We use too to mean more than sufficient or more/less than necessary.

 It's too late to stop him.

 Jerry was too young to watch the movie.
 There are too many people on this train, there's nowhere to sit.
 You have too much money, give some to me.
 You've eaten too many of those cakes.

2. We use enough to mean sufficient.

 Your clothes are big enough to fit me.

 You've done enough work. You can stop now.
 Have you got enough money to buy me a drink?

3. We use enough in negative sentences to mean less than sufficient or less than necessary.

 You're not working fast enough, you won't finish on time.

 Sorry, I haven't got enough food for everyone.
 Not enough of my friends are coming to the party.

Additional points

We can use enough without a noun if the meaning is clear.

There's a lot of food but not enough for everyone.
We can replace enough with the before a noun.
I don't have the money to go on holiday.
His company doesn't have the resources to do the job.
We can use time or room alone to mean enough time or enough room.
Is there room in your car for one more person?
Do we have time for a coffee?

By teacher David Núñez V.