Real ESL Video Lesson 17 - Fewer flowers or less flowers? What’s right?
Should you say ‘fewer flowers’ or ‘less flowers’?
Fewer flowers.
Should you say ‘fewer makeup’ or ‘less makeup’?
Less makeup.
Should you say ‘fewer items’ or ‘less items’?
Fewer items.
Should you say ‘fewer ice cream’ or ‘less ice cream’?
Less ice cream.
If you had a problem with any of these, watch the following video blog! Below the video, I have written a partial transcript (all key phrases) and a vocabulary explanation.
Transcript/Vocabulary Explanation
A lot of native speakers do it wrong, so you can laugh at them once you know.
once = when
‘Fewer’ needs a countable noun and ‘less’ needs an uncountable noun.
a countable noun - something that can be counted; you can put a number in front of it
(three dogs, a pen, two books)
an uncountable noun - something that can not be counted directly; you must put it into something to count it
(a slice of pie, a tube of lipstick, two gallons of gas)
It’s kind of like a liquid; you have to put it into something to be able to count it.
A tube of lipstick = a container lipstick is put in
Some people say… there are less flowers over there…. but that’s wrong.
Go ahead. = Do it.
Find things that are countable and add fewer to them (in front).
Find things that are uncountable and add less to them (in front).
Dear kim,
Thank you so much for the video. That is so helpful.
I have a question in writing and I read the previous posts that you mentioned if we have problem in writing, we can send our articles to you. Then, I tried to find your email on the weblog, I did not see it. I would like to ask you to have your email if you do not mind. I so appreciate that in advance.
Best regards,
Nafis
I have a question. I read an article about comets and I found this sentence which have me to think about it.
the short-period comets are constantly burning up, may be less than a million years, all of them would have been disappeared if it had not been something called Capture.
In this sentence, the author used Less than a million years,
my question is why the author used less instead of few, because year is countable noun, as far as I know.
next question is why he/she used “a” with years, since years is plural, we can not use “a”.
Thank you so much!
Dear kim,
I can see my comment right now.
Thank you.
Hi Nafis,
Thanks for asking this question. It is a common problem area.
When you are talking about a period of time, rather than individual countable weeks/months/years, you use less than … because time, as a concept, is uncountable.
So, you say less than a million years because you are talking about an uncountable amount that is less than a single period of time lasting a million years.
Here are some other examples:
I plan to be in America for less than a year.
I will be finished in less than ten weeks.
Kim
Dear Kim,
Thank you so much for the explanation.It helped me a lot.