A little/little, a few/few

1. A little salt. little salt. a few people. few people. Sugar? – A little, please. Only a few of these are any good. Only a few of our customers have accounts. I have quite a few books in art

[‘a little’ + N / ‘little’ + N se emplean, con ‘a little’ y ‘little’ como adjetivos, delante de nombres incontables en singular. ‘a few’ + N / ‘few’ + N, delante de nombres contables en plural. Las 4 formas pueden usarse como pronombres, o solas o seguidas de of (construcción partitiva). ‘only’ delante de ‘a little’ o ‘a few’ denota que la cantidad o el número son realmente pequeños. ‘quite’ delante de ‘a few’ aumenta el número considerablemente.]

2. There was little time for consultation. Little is known about the side-effects of this drug. Few towns have such splendid trees. We saw little (We saw hardly anything/We didn’t see much). Tourists come here but few stay overnight (Tourists come here but hardly any stay overnight). I’m unwilling to try a drug I know so little about. They have too many technicians, we have too few. There are fewer butterflies every year.

[‘little’ y ‘few’, adjetivos y pronombres, denotan escasez y tienen prácticamente la fuerza de una negación. Su uso se limita a la lengua escrita, donde no hay riesgo de que sean confundidos con ‘a little’/’a few’. En la conversación se los reemplaza por ‘hardly any’, o verbo negativo + ‘much’/’many’. Cualificados por ‘so’, ‘very’, ‘too’, ‘extremely’, ‘comparatively’, ‘relatively’ su utilización no es más libre. También es más libre el uso de la forma comparativa ‘fewer’.]

3.1. It rained a little during the night. They grumbled a little about having to wait. A little annoyed. A little anxious. A little unwillingly. A little impatiently. This paper should be a little thicker. Can’t you walk a little faster?

[‘a little’, adverbio, aparece con verbos, con adjetivos y adverbios desfavorables y modificando comparativos.]

3.2. His second suggestion was little (=not much) better than his first. He was little (=not much) more than a child when his father died. He little expected to find himself in prison. He little thought that one … day. A little-known painter. A little-used path.

[‘little’, adverbio, se encuentra sobre todo con ‘better’ o ‘more’ en estilo formal. También delante de ‘expect’, ‘know’, ‘suspect’, ‘think’. Y forma parte de los adjetivos ‘little known’ y ‘little used’.]