French Adverbs of Quantity
Adverbes de quantité
French adverbs of quantity explain how many or how much.
| assez (de) | quite, fairly, enough |
| autant (de) | as much, as many |
| beaucoup (de) | a lot, many |
| bien de* | quite a few |
| combien (de) | how many, much |
| davantage | more |
| encore de* | more |
| environ | around, approximately |
| la majorité de* | the majority of |
| la minorité de* | the minority of |
| moins (de) | less, fewer |
| un nombre de | a number of |
| pas mal de | quite a few |
| (un) peu (de) | few, little, not very |
| la plupart de* | most |
| plus (de) | more |
| une quantité de | a lot of |
| seulement | only |
| si | so |
| tant (de) | so much, so many |
| tellement | so |
| très | very |
| trop (de) | too much, too many |
| un/e verre/boîte/kilo de (more quantities) |
a glass/can/kg/bit of |
Adverbs of quantity (except très) are often followed by de + noun. When this happens, the noun usually does not have an article in front of it; i.e., de stands alone, with no definite article.*
Il y a beaucoup de problèmes - There are a lot of problems.
J'ai moins d'étudiants que Thierry - I have fewer students than Thierry.
*This does not apply to the starred adverbs, which are always followed by the definite article.
Exception: When the noun after de refers to specific people or things, the definite article is used and contracts with de just as the partitive article would. Compare the following sentences to the above examples to see what I mean by specific.
Beaucoup des problèmes sont graves - A lot of the
problems are serious.
- We are referring to specific problems, not
problems in general.
Peu des étudiants de Thierry sont ici - Few of Thierry's
students are here.
- This is a specific group of students, not
students in general.
Verb conjugations may be singular or plural, depending on the number of the noun that follows - learn more.
Approximate numbers (like une douzaine, une centaine) follow the same rules.
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