Both, several, enough
Introduction
There are several problems. Firstly, we don't have enough information about the situation in Asia. Also, we need both money and time in order to investigate.
Definition
Both, several and enough are quantifiers.
Both = two things or people.
Several = an imprecise number.
Enough = all that is necessary.
Construction
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Both |
+ plural noun
without a noun
+ two singular nouns
after a noun |
Both days are OK for me.
Both are OK for me.
Both Monday and Wednesday are OK for me.
Those days are both OK for me.
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| With countable nouns | With uncountable nouns |
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Several |
It happened several days ago.
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Enough |
We have enough cups.
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We don't have enough coffee. |
Uses
| Use | Examples |
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To emphasise a similarity between two things or people
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They both like coffee.
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To emphasise not one but two things or people
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He confirmed both the date and the time of the meeting.
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To talk about adjectives and actions - not only nouns |
This car is available in both red and blue.
She can both sing and dance.
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When we don't use an exact number |
We need to make several important decisions.
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To talk about all that is necessary |
We recruited a researcher last week - now we have enough people in the team.
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'Several'
Note that we use several in formal contexts more than in conversation. For example:
There was a serious accident on the motorway and several people were injured.
There are several interesting books on this subject.
'Enough'
As a quantifier, we use enough before nouns:
We have enough tea.
We don't have enough coffee.
Do we have enough sugar?
But when it is an adverb of degree, we use it after verbs, adjectives and other adverbs:
I don't sleep enough.
He doesn't work fast enough.
This room is big enough.
Examples
You can ask Maria or George for help - they're both experts.
Both my son and my daughter are behaving badly today.
She dropped both her bags.
They visited several European countries.
I don't have enough money.
