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Articles and quantifiers

1 Quantifiers

Remember that these common English nouns are uncountable - furniture, information, weather, advice, hair, progress, news.

    We can´t say: a good news X or a funiture

But we can say: some good news or some furniture

Or we can refer to a singular item by using words such as piece, slice, cup, etc.

    a piece of good news                           three cups of water

Remember that uncountable nouns take a singular verb.

    The news is good.                                 The weather was awful.

Quantifiers are words like few, less, some, any, much and many.

    There is some tea left in the pot, and there are some biscuits in the packet.

    There isn´t any tea left in the pot, and there aren´t any biscuits either.

    Is there any tea left in the pot? Are there any biscuits left in the packet?

    Is there some tea left? (hopefully expecting the answer yes)

Less, the least, little and much  are only used with countable nouns.

    There isn´t much tea left.                                Beth´s got less money than Jane.

    There is very little tea left.                              But Dave´s got the least money of all.

Few, fewer, the fewest and many are only used with plural countable nouns.

    There aren´t many biscuits left.                        Alan´s got fewer friends than Sue.

    There are only a few biscuits.                           But Dave´s got the fewest friends of all.