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Nouns and quantifiers

Nouns and quantifiers

Saturday, July 02, 2011, 15:30 GMT+7

Dr. Grammar says:

“What’s wrong with these sentences? I want to buy a new mobile phone, but the one I want is many money, and I don’t have some.”

EXPLANATION:

(Before starting this lesson, take a look at last week’s lesson introducing countable and uncountable nouns.)

Now that we know the difference between countable and uncountable nouns, we are going to look at how to describe how much of something there is, or the quantity of something.

Last week we looked at counting countable and uncountable nouns using numbers. However, often we don’t know, or need, the exact number, so we use quantifiers. For example:

During the wet season there is a lot of rain.

(We don’t need to know a measurement, so we can say “a lot of”.)

Which quantifiers can we use?

Depending on whether a noun is countable, there are many phrases you can use:

For Countable Nouns Only (How many?):

a few

a number of

several

a large number of

a great number of

For Uncountable Nouns Only (How much):

a little a bit of

a great deal of

a large amount of

For both (How much/how many?):

no/none

not any

some (any)

a lot of

plenty of

How do we use these phrases?

Generally, they are placed before the noun. So as long as you know if your noun is countable or uncountable, and how much of it to use, you should be able to use these phrases.

So… I want to buy a new mobile phone, but the one I want is many money. X I want to buy a new mobile phone, but the one I want is a lot of money. √

EXERCISE:

Choose the correct quantifiers in the following sentences:

1. I want to travel to many/a large amount of countries when I finish studying.

2. Not a lot of/A little people have ever seen a tiger in the wild.

3. How many/much money do you have?

4. Some/A few cities have started stopping cars from going into the city centre.

ANSWERS:

1. many

2. Not a lot of

3. much

4. Both are ok!

FURTHER PRACTICE: Firstly, read some articles on Tuoi Tre and look for as many nouns as you can. Now see if there are any quantifiers used with the nouns. Do they follow the patterns in the lesson above?

Now, write sentences using the nouns below and follow the patterns in the lesson to choose the correct quantifiers:

food                                       music                                                money

the weather                          rice                                                     people

pollution                                ice cream                                         happiness

Vietnam                                studying abroad                              family

This material is provided by the Australian Centre for Education and Training (ACET).

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