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“A LOT OF” AND “LOTS OF”                                                                                       “FEW” FOR SMALL NUMBERS
         “A lot of” and “lots of” are commonly used informally                                                          “Few” is used with plural countable nouns to     “A few” is used with plural countable nouns to
         before uncountable nouns and plural countable nouns                                                            say that there are not many of something. It     mean “some.” It emphasizes that the number,
         to indicate that there is a large quantity of something.                                                       emphasizes how small the number is.              though small, is enough.



                                                                                                                                          = not many                                         = some








         FURTHER EXAMPLES

                                                                                                                        FURTHER EXAMPLES

                                                                                                                              “Few” can also be used as a                    “Very” can be used to stress that the
                                                                                                                              pronoun to mean “not many.”                   number of something is even smaller.









                 “LITTLE” FOR SMALL AMOUNTS                                                                                    “QUITE A FEW” AND “QUITE A BIT (OF)” FOR BIG QUANTITIES

         “Little” is used with uncountable nouns to say   “A little” is used with uncountable nouns to                  The phrases
         that there is not much of something in UK        mean “some.” It emphasizes that the amount,                   “quite a bit of” and
         English. It emphasizes how small the amount is.   though small, is enough.                                     “quite a few” are                 = many                               = a lot of
                                                                                                                        understatements
                                                                                                                        that actually
                         = not much                                         = some                                      mean “a lot”
                                                                                                                        or “many.”






                    “Little” can also be used as a                           Informally, “a (little) bit of”
                    pronoun to mean “not much.”                              can be used instead of “a little.”         FURTHER EXAMPLES













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   202-207_Unit_75_Quantity.indd   204                                                               08/08/2016   16:29  202-207_Unit_75_Quantity.indd   205                                                       02/09/2016   12:52
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