Posts Tagged ‘rather’

Modification of words

July 25th, 2011 in Improve English

We can use words like much, many, little and few with degree modifiers like too, so, as, very, rather and how. Note that very much and very many are mostly used in questions and negatives.

There is too much noise.
How many people were there?
We have got very little time left.
We have so many problems to solve.
I met rather few interesting people on the holiday.

We can use quite and rather to modify a lot and a few.

You have made quite a lot of mistakes.
She speaks quite a few languages. (= She speaks a lot of languages.)

Note that we can use much, far and rather to modify too much, too many, too little and too few.

You bought much too much milk.
You have done much too little for them.

There are far too many religions in the world.

Enough can be modified by quite.

I have had quite enough to worry about.

Prepositions and adverb particles referring to place and movement can be modified by right.

Hit the target right in the middle.