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Do you know how to use too much and too many in English?
What about enough and not enough?
We'll look at these, plus countable and uncountable nouns, and a little quiz towards the end.
Stay tuned! Welcome to the Coffee Break English Show.
I'm Nick. And my name is Annabelle.
How are you doing, Nick?
I'm really good, yeah.
I'm looking forward to this episode.
How are you? Yes, I'm also looking forward to this episode because you mentioned we are looking at four different things...
too much, too many, enough and not enough.
Exactly. So where are we going to start with?
Well first, before we look at these, I think it's important to look at countable and uncountable nouns.
So too much and too many...
we use these to show that something is more than enough, or it's more than we want, but too much is with uncountable nouns.
An uncountable noun is a noun that is not possible to put a number in front of.
So usually liquids, so we can't say one water, we say some water or coffee or with ideas that we can't count, so information.
OK, I was going to say information.
Yes, or it could be something like advice.
So these are not possible to count.
We can't say one advice, two advices.
Whereas with too many we use that with countable nouns.
So we can count them.
Yeah, exactly. One cup of coffee, two people, three computers.
OK, I see. Okay, so let's have a closer look at too many.
So with too many we can use this to say that the quantity of the noun is too much. I watch too many videos of cats doing funny things for example.
Okay, so it's like too many videos.
Videos is countable because we can count one video, two videos, three videos.
and that's why we are using too many videos.
Exactly absolutely and with the uncountable nouns we have too much. So I can see I spend too much time on the internet looking at cats videos of cats.
Okay in this time we are using time which is uncountable and then we are using too much. So then too much and too many both have the same meaning but it's about the noun that we are using after them?
Exactly, and we have to be careful here because what we're saying here is it's a negative idea.
So we put two in front here to show that this is not a good thing.
But if we want to be positive, we could use, so, we can say, so much or so many.
I understand. There is a way that we can use two with adjectives as well.
So with two plus adjectives we could say, for example, for me, cats are too entertaining.
It's a problem for me.
Okay, so we have two entertaining, entertaining being the adjective and because it's an adjective, we are not using too much, like much or many.
Exactly! We just need two plus adjective.
So just to recap, it's two plus adjective, Yeah.
Too much plus an uncountable noun and too many plus a countable noun.
Exactly. Perfect. So let's move on to enough and not enough.
With enough, we're saying that something is the correct quantity.
It's sufficient for what we need.
Okay. And an example is, there's enough light in this studio.
Yeah. So it's the correct amount of light, people.
If you're watching, you can see us.
Excellent. And here with enough or not enough, do we need to know if the noun is countable or uncomfortable?
With enough, it's not important, but we do need to be careful with the verb, because we can focus too much on the quantifier and not on the verb.
We still need to pay attention to whether it's countable or uncountable for the choice of the verb be, for example.
So it's there is enough light.
Exactly and there are enough mugs of coffee on the table.
For us excellent. And imagine that today I have a headache and I really need an app.
So I could say there is too much light in this room.
Exactly yeah, you need less light in the room for you.
Okay and let's look at not enough then.
So not enough is to show that the quantity is below what we need.
So we want more. Yeah exactly so it's like the opposite of enough, enough is correct quantity and not enough is below that correct quantity.
I understand. So we could say you didn't get enough sleep.
Yes. Well I hope that this lesson is clear enough.
Wait a minute, there you haven't used a noun.
You said clear enough.
Yeah. So you are using an adjective.
Exactly. So here we have adjective and enough.
We have to be a little careful with that.
In this case, we've got clear enough, so the adjective always comes before enough.
Whereas when we talk about nouns, enough comes before the countable or uncountable noun.
Okay, so it's enough plus a noun and adjective enough.
Yeah. Excellent, yeah.
Do you have some practice?
Yeah, I think that is enough for the explanation, we can have a look at the quiz.
I'm going to give you some sentences and with a space.
I want you from the context to tell me which of the quantifiers is best for the sentence.
Okay so we are using too much, too many, enough, not enough.
Exactly and you'll hear a little noise there when there's the time to put that word in.
Perfect. And before we start, remember that you can pause your video if you're listening so that you can play along with this.
Perfect. So, number one.
She put salt in the soup and now it tastes terrible.
Okay, so it tastes terrible.
So I think that is 2 and it's too much because it's sold and sold is uncountable.
So too much sold. Absolutely, exactly!
Oh perfect. So number two.
There are spaces in the car for all of us.
We will take two cars.
Okay so we need two cars, so not enough.
So there are not enough spaces.
Exactly, yeah, we have four spaces and five people.
Okay, number three.
I have books in my bag.
It's so heavy. Okay, well, here I love reading.
I will say I don't have enough books, like not enough books, but it's too heavy so I'm a countable noun.
Great absolutely, yeah in this case we don't want a bad bag but you can never have too many books.
Okay number four. You can stay for dinner, there is food for everyone.
So there's food for everyone so there is enough food.
Yeah exactly absolutely okay great so that's bit of a warm -up now for a quick -fire quiz.
Okay yes i'm ready so i'll give you a sentence and i want you to tell me if you if you think it's too much too many enough not enough okay okay one five cups of coffee in a day well i personally don't like coffee so to me it's too too many cups or too much coffee.
Great and both options work well here and for me sometimes i need five cups so it's enough!
Okay. Especially on a Monday enough coffee enough cups of coffee.
Yeah and again both are okay perfect.
Great, number two eight hours of sleep in the night.
I would say it's enough but if i'm very tired it's not enough.
Yeah, for me, I would say that eight hours of sleep is enough.
I don't often get it.
I don't get enough sleep, I think.
I only get six or seven hours.
Okay, yeah. And if someone doesn't need to sleep eight hours, then it's too many hours of sleep or too much sleep?
Here we're talking about sleep.
So maybe it's better to say too much sleep.
Okay, I see. Okay, last one.
Going for a 100 kilometre run.
Okay, that's too much. Yes, I think for me, it's also it's too far.
Maybe a 10 kilometre run is my limit at the moment, yeah.
Okay, I think that's enough exercise on that topic, don't you?
Well I think it was like more than enough.
Thank you very much for the practice and also for the explanations.
But before we finish, shall we do like a quick recap?
Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot of information here.
So let's go through that.
So we have countable nouns.
We can put a number in front of a countable noun.
Uncountable nouns we can't.
Okay. We have too much for uncountable nouns, too many for countable nouns and they mean the quantity is more than we want.
And then we have two plus an adjective.
Exactly. And two plus an adjective gives this a negative idea that there's too much of that adjective.
Then we have enough, enough we put before countable and uncountable nouns and we put after adjectives.
And the meaning is correct amount.
And we have not enough which means below the correct amount.
That we need more, we want more.
Exactly. Great. So thank you very much for today, Annabel.
Now thank you for the practice and the explanation.
Yeah, I really hope it has been clear enough.
More than enough. Right, that's fantastic.
And if you do want more practice with much and many, check out this video here where we give a bit more of an explanation of how to use them.
And if you would like to read a written version of this episode, don't forget to check our blog article on this, the link is on the description.
– So thank you very much for joining me today Anabel.
– No, thank you for the activities and also for the explanations and thank you as well to be like learning with me, the listeners, and also if you are watching, so thank you.
– Happy Coffee Breaking!
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