1- Expressing the amount of something
1.1- Introduction
There is a lot of sand in the desert.
There are many flamingoes in the park.
There is a little bit of water in the glass.
There are just a few people in the swimming
1.2- Quantifiers
Quantifiers are words we use when we want to express the amount, or the quantity of something. The most common ones are much – many – little – few – some and a lot of. In order to use the appropriate quantifier, we need to identify if the word is countable or uncountable, i.e. if we can or cannot count the items.
| For countable nouns | For uncountable nouns | |
| A great amount of something | Many A lot of |
Much A lot of |
| A medium amount of something | Some | Some |
| A little amount of something | Few | Little |
|
If you are not sure about a word, you should ask: can I use a number before the noun? E.g: Can I say “two water” or do I have to say “two glasses / bottles of water”? If you can use the word with a number, it means it is countable, but if you can’t, it is uncountable. |
1.3- Examples of countable and uncountable words
| Countable nouns | Uncountable nouns |
| Apple | Advice |
| Bus | Beauty |
| Child | Cereal |
| Clock | Equipment |
| Coin | Jewellery |
| Cup | Garbage |
| Dish | Happiness |
| Flower | Information |
| Holiday | Love |
| Idea | Milk |
| Job | Money |
| Life | Pasta |
| Monkey | Salt |
| Movie | Time |
| Suitcase | Work |
1.4- Read carefully the following dialogue
Mary: Tomorrow is mom’s birthday, what can we do for her?
Anne: How about taking her into the cinema?
Mary: No, she is not a big fan of movies; I think she has only watched 2 movies in the whole year.
Anne: Ok, can we get her some jewellery?
Mary: I’m sorry but I’m broke, we need something cheaper.
Anne: I have an idea! We can prepare a meal for her, I can make some pasta, you know she loves it!
Mary: That’s great! But don’t make too much pasta, because I’m going to prepare an apple pie for dessert.
Anne: Lovely! What do you need?
Mary: Mmm, I need a lot of apples, a ½ bottle of milk, 2 cups of flour, some salt and sugar… I think we have all the ingredients in the kitchen
Anne: And I will pick up many flowers so we can decorate the house for her.
Mary: Great! She is going to love it!
| The highlighted sentence shows how to use uncountable nouns with numbers, adding the words bottle and cups. There are plenty other words we can use to count an uncountable noun, some of them are: bag, box, glass, jar, piece, slice, spoonful. |
2- Cardinal numbers
The cardinal numbers (one, two, three, etc.) are adjectives referring to quantity.
They are:
| Ones | Teens | Twenties | Thirties | ||||
| 0 | zero | 10 | ten | 20 | twenty | 30 | thirty |
| 1 | one | 11 | eleven | 21 | twenty-one | 31 | thirty-one |
| 2 | two | 12 | twelve | 22 | twenty-two | 32 | thirty-two |
| 3 | three | 13 | thirteen | 23 | twenty-three | 33 | thirty-three |
| 4 | four | 14 | fourteen | 24 | twenty-four | 34 | thirty-four |
| 5 | five | 15 | fifteen | 25 | twenty-five | 35 | thirty-five |
| 6 | six | 16 | sixteen | 26 | twenty-six | 36 | thirty-six |
| 7 | seven | 17 | seventeen | 27 | twenty-seven | 37 | thirty-seven |
| 8 | eight | 18 | eighteen | 28 | twenty-eight | 38 | thirty-eight |
| 9 | nine | 19 | nineteen | 29 | twenty-nine | 39 | thirty-nine |
<td
| ones | hundreds | thousands+ | |||
| 1 | one | 100 | one hundred | 1.000 | one thousand |
| 2 | two | 200 | two hundred | 10.000 | ten thousand |
| 3 | three | 300 | three hundred | 100.000 | one hundred thousand |
| 4 | four | 400 | four hundred | 1.000.000 | one million |
| 5 | five | ||||
