What are quantifiers?

Quantifiers are types of determiners that help indicate the quantity of something.

 A quantifier can be a number or a word. 

➜ E.g. I have a few pencils. ✏️✏️✏️

➜ E.g. She has a lot of friends. 👭👫

There are several rules we need to follow when using quantifiers. These rules depend on whether the noun is countable, uncountable, or both. 

Here is a simple summary of the rules:

Countable nouns

These are nouns that can be counted. They have singular and plural forms. 

➜ E.g. He has two blue books. 📘📘

We add the article ‘the’ between the quantifier and the noun being described.

➜ E.g. Some of the bananas are ripe.  🍌🍌🍌

We add an appropriate quantifier when describing more than two countable nouns. These include a few, many, a number of, etc. 

➜ E.g. I saw a few zebras at the zoo.  🦓🦓🦓🦓

Uncountable nouns

These are nouns that can’t be counted. They only have singular forms. We use quantifiers such as a bit, a little, a large amount of, etc. 

➜ E.g. I have a lot of homework to do.  📝

Both countable and uncountable nouns

Some quantifiers can be used for both countable and uncountable nouns.

These include all, some, lots of, not any, etc.

➜ E.g. There are some oranges in the bowl. (countable) 🍊🍊🍊

➜ E.g. There is some bread in the cupboard. (uncountable) 🍞🥖