few, a few, little, a little的区别和联系?
few、a few、little、a little的区别和联系:
1. few / a few用来修饰可数名词,few表示否定意义,没有,几乎没有;
a few表示有肯定意思, 有几个。 例如:
He has few friends here, he feels lonely.
他这里没朋友,他感觉寂寞。
There are a few eggs in the basket.篮子里有几个鸡蛋。
2.little / a little用来修饰不可数名词,little表示否定意思,没有,几乎没有。
a little 表示肯定意思,有一点儿。 例如:
There is little ink in my bottle, can you give me a little ink?
我的瓶子里没有墨水了,你能给我点儿墨水吗?
补充内容:
第一种,按照可数与不可数分类。
可数的是:few和a few,比如说banana,apple啊这些可数的名词前面我们可以加这两个词,few bananas就是表示几乎没有香蕉啦,而a few bananas呢就是表示还有些香蕉。
few等同于not many,hardly any;a few等同于some、several、a small number of。
不可数的是:little和a little,用来修饰不可数名词,比如说salt,sugar,bread之类的,例如
little salt就是表示没有盐啦,而a little salt则可以表示还有一点盐的。
当然,可数和不可数名词种类还是挺多的,不止上面这些食品类的哦,只是举个例子,好理解一些。
第二种,按肯定与否定来分类。
肯定的是:a little和a few
否定的是:little和few
什么是肯定和否定呢,我们就需要通过几个例句来了解一下,我们可以拿比较著名的半杯水思维区分乐观和悲观的人来举个栗子。半杯水摆在我们面前,悲观的人会认为,杯子里几乎没有水了,就是:There is little water in the glass,而乐观的人会认为,太好了,还有水诶,就是:There is a little water in the glass.
再比如说,下面两个栗子。
(1)There are a few people in the playground.
(2)There are few people in the playground.
第一个句子表示,操场上还有些人,第二个句子表示操场上没有人。
但需要注意的是:
(1)当 few受 every, last, past, next, some, very等词所修饰时,表示肯定意义,few之前不再有冠词。如:
In the last few minutes, he checked up his paper again.
It took us some few days to repair the machine.
They are very few in number.
There were too few of them.
He goes to see his grandma every few weeks.
(2)在非正式英语中,一般很少用little,常用not much, only a little来代替,如:
We haven’t got much money / time.