'A Couple', 'A Few', and 'Several'

All right.

We’re getting close to the end of our lesson on quanta fires and we’re going to look at now three which are used only for countable nouns.

A couple a few and several.

And actually they’re very similar.

Let’s just talk very quickly about the differences between them.

A couple is generally too although sometimes people use it to say three.

It’s just something that kind of becomes a habit for some people.

A few is more than two but not many.

It’s usually a small number of.

And some people again might use it for two out of habit.

But generally speaking it just means not many.

And then several is more than two but not many more than two but not many.

And again sometimes sometimes you might hear people use it for two but definitely not one definitely not one.

And this can be very you know a wide range because a few could be a hundred at the small end of a very large scale if the scale is on this and 10 billion.

And on this end a hundred.

Well some people might say then a hundred is a few.

So there are some there are some good interesting examples where a few is actually a lot compared to one.

Generally that’s not the case.

Generally it’s three four five maybe six.

That’s how it’s usually used.

But I just want to show you that it is possible in some cases to use it as a much larger number.

Several several OK several is usually three four sometimes five.

Usually around there.

But it’s it’s not too it’s not too.

Let’s actually go through some examples of these simple words and phrases.

It takes a couple weeks to process applications to an application is something that you need to maybe fill in if you’re going to get a bank account or maybe apply for a job or a visa.

And it has steps a process has steps but process here is a verb to process something.

So it takes several weeks to process.

That means they need to review it and check it before they give you a result.

It takes a couple weeks.

Means it takes probably two weeks or around there.

It doesn’t mean exactly 14 days maybe 13 maybe 15.

If you want to put in usually here you could.

It usually takes a couple weeks to process applications.

OK.

I need a few minutes to calm down a few minutes to calm down.

Something crazy happens.

I’ve stressed I’ve been fired or whatever and someone says Hey are you OK.

And I go Oh yeah give me a few minutes to calm down so calming down is what we do after something exciting happens that makes us feel stressed.

We feel stressed we need to calm down.

And it might take us three four five six minutes to do that.

Take a few aspirin.

Take a few aspirin.

OK.

Aspirin is something that we take for pain relief when to relieve pain and we would take two or three or four of those depending on maybe our age.

I’m not giving you medical advice here.

Check the bottle.

OK.

After several reminders he was fired several three maybe four OK maybe five reminders are basically times when he did something bad he was late on Monday and then he was late the next month on Thursday and the next month it was late on Wednesday and he was given two reminders and then given a final reminder and then he was fired don’t be late Don’t be late Don’t be late you’re fired.

Those three are reminders and several is to give you a feeling for the number.

Why don’t we just say the number why don’t we say he was given three reminders.

Well take three aspirin.

We could we could but I feel it makes the world very stiff when we give specific numbers and in life we don’t always know exact numbers.

Right.

We often want to give a general idea and we have no idea what the specific number is.

So that’s why quantum fires are so useful.

That’s why quantum fires help us to express quantities or amounts and not be locked into being wrong because we gave the wrong number.

Right.

So it’s actually extremely useful and you need to know how to use them very naturally.