what is the difference between little and a little....few and a few??
Answers
The Difference Between Fewand a Few
We use the word few when we want to talk about the quantity of something. Usually, we use it when we want to talk about a small quantity:
Few members of the family leave their hometown each year.
In the sentence above, we used few to indicate that only one or two members of the family leave town—most of them stay put. However, if we were to add “a” to few, we would be saying something else:
A few members of the family leave their hometown each year.
Here we’re saying that some members of the family leave their hometown. It’s still not a lot of them, but the emphasis is on the fact on that there are some who do leave, and not that their number is small. Here’s another example
Difference Between Little and a Little
Little and a little follow the same pattern as few vs. a few. The only difference is that we use few and a few with countable nouns in the plural form, and we use little and a little with uncountable nouns:
We had little time to prepare before we had to go.
We had a little time to prepare before we had to go.
In the first example, we are saying that we didn’t have a lot of time before we had to go. In the second one, we’re saying that we had some time, albeit not a lot of it, to prepare.
To make it easier, you could think about it as you would about the proverbial glass of water—you use few and little when you want to point out that the glass is half empty (there’s little water in the glass) and you use a few and a little when you want to point out that the glass is half full (at least there’s some of it). By the way, you should use little and a littlewith “water” because it’s an uncountable noun.
Answer:
few and a few:
i) I have many friends; I've known few of them since high school.
ii) I have many friends; I've known a few of them since high school.
little and a little:
i) We had little time to prepare before we had to go.
ii) We had a little time to prepare before we had to go.
Explanation:
Both the terms "few" and a few" technically refer to more than one, so some people use them interchangeably, assuming they mean the same, but that is not correct. ‘A few’ means ‘some’, whereas ‘few’ means ‘not a lot of’. In the examples you have provided, ‘A few reports have been published’ means that ‘Some reports have been published’, whereas ‘Few reports have been published’ means that ‘Not many reports have been published’. As you can see, ‘few’ usually has a negative connotation, while 'a few' usually has a apositive connotation.
Little and a little are also used in front of nouns to talk about quantities. When they are used like this, they do not have the same meaning.
You use a little to show that you are talking about a small quantity or amount of something. When you use little without `a', you are emphasizing that there is only a small quantity or amount of something.
so , for example , if you say' I have little money', you are saying that you have some money. However, if you say `I have little money', you mean that you do not have enough money.
I had made a little progress.