あいまいな数について

[Cue]

This has always been one of my questions.
What numbers exactly would you think of when someone says...

1) a few ?
2) not a few?
3) a couple of ?
4) several?
5) many?
6) a lot?

I think "a couple of" means "2", but could it be more than 2?
Also, I think "a few" means " 2 or 3", but could it mean "4 or 5" also?
when you say "many" or "a lot", would it mean more than 50%? or 70%??

I know that in Japanese we do have those vague expressions, like 少なからず, たくさんの　or いくつかの.

「絶対にこれ！」という答えじゃなくていいので、大体 どのぐらいが目安なのか
教えてもらえると助かります。

Thank you in advance for your help.

Q

[yukio_michael]

A few, a bunch, a couple, many, much, teeny, tiny, big, huge... English has a lot of words that are non-specific when it comes to counting.

A couple is a good example that you list. Where literally it usually means two, since this is couple's definition, but it's not specific. Generally speaking though, I think it depends on what is being talked about, "Can I have a couple of dollars?"... You may give the person more than simply two dollars, but if someone asks at a store, "May I have a couple of apples please?", you'll probably get two apples.

Small things, and vague quantity may make the word couple count more than two.

Many is best used to state that a large number of things exist, "Many snowflakes fell that night...", but it remains unknown compared to anything else... Many is meant mainly to state "A quantity much more than A few, and greater than moderate..."

A lot is the same, though it can mean both "A lot of people drive cars to work", meaning, the number of people who drives cars is proportionately high, or "How much does that car cost?" "A lot!" meaning, quite expensive, comparitively...

I know a lot of this sounds vague, and it is, the best thing I think is to find different usages of the word and see how the phrases can be used... I use the same techniques w/ learning Japanese which have many many words that can be used in a variety of ways.

I hope this helps, some. : )

[srintuar]

Originally Posted by Cue

1) a few ?
2) not a few?
3) a couple of ?
4) several?
5) many?
6) a lot?

1) 2,3,4 or so
2) hrm, I would need context for that.
3) usually two, sometimes more
4) 6-7, or more, but not huge amounts usually
5) depends upon context, more than 2 or 3
6) this is often a non-counted volume quantity, such as "a lot of water", but otherwise the same as "many"

[Cue]

Ohh, yes, it does help me a lot! Thank you, Yukio san!

Yes, that word "couple" confuses me often!
I see. So, it depends a lot on the context and situation, and you can't just specify how many.

If I wanted to list them in ascending order, would this be close?
one < a couple of < a few < several < a bunch of < many (= a lot) ?
I know it's hard to list them in order anyway, but I'd like to have a general idea... ^^;

改めて、ユキオさん、どうもありがとうございました！

…ってここまで書いたところでSrinさんの書き込み発見 ！
あぁ、なるほど！すごくわかりやすいです！

As to 2) and 5), for instance, would "Not a few people watch anime" and "Many people watch anime" sound about the same?

Thank you again Yukio san and Srin san!! It's so helpful and useful to me!!

Q

[koruri]

あー、おもしろい質問ですね。私も割りこんでいいですか？
This is an interesting thread. Can I cut in?

最近quite a　fewがmanyを表すことを知ったのですが、not a few も quite a few も　many と同じように使うのでしょうか？
I've just learned that "quite a few" meant "many".
Do both "not a few" and "quite a few" mean "many"?

あと、a handful of も最近教えてもらいました。５，６個ということだそう です。
I've also learned about " a handful of". I heard it meant around 5 or 6.

several よりはもう少しspecificということかな？
I guess it's a kind of "several" but more specific than "several".
Am I right?

[Glenn]

I can't remember ever hearing "not a few," to be honest. I can only think of a few instances when it could be used.

I think "lots of people watch anime" is more colloquial, but "many people watch anime" has the same meaning. I can't really think of when "not a few people watch anime" would be appropriate. In this case, "many" or "lots" would probably be in the thousands at least, and probably would extend to the millions.

Cue, I think your order is right, but I think that "several" and "a bunch of" are pretty much the same in terms of number.

koruri, "quite a few" is like "many." "Not a few" would be too, as far as I know.

I think you're right about "a handful of." Although, I don't know that it's more specific than "several"; I think it's probably more colloquial.

My guess is that even among native speakers there isn't much of a consensus. There are probably some pretty varied definitions depending on the person. Also, as srintuar said, context also plays a role in some cases. For instance, the "lots" in "lots of people watch anime" is vastly different than the "lots" in "lots of my family members are musicians." Since the first sentence is more about the general population, you're dealing with a much larger number than with the family members example. Also, the percentages could be very different as well. In the anime example, it could only be 5% of the actual population, but the sentence to me has the feeling that "(you probably think that the number of people who watch anime is pretty low, but) lots of people watch anime." In the family example, we're probably talking about more than half of the people being musicians.

But then again, it could also be that you're comparing your family to the average family, and again it could only be 10% of your family that are musicians, whereas most families only comprise 2% musicians.

So, the point of all of that is that context is very important when interpreting "many" or "lots." I hope that made some sense.

[undrentide]

Originally Posted by koruri

あと、a handful of も最近教えてもらいました。５，６個ということだそう です。
I've also learned about " a handful of". I heard it meant around 5 or 6.

Originally Posted by Glenn

I think you're right about "a handful of." Although, I don't know that it's more specific than "several"; I think it's probably more colloquial.

A handfulがseveralと同じような意味だというのは知りま せんでした。
Somehow, whenever I hear/read "a handful", another meaning is popping in my head.

i.e. The child is rather a handful. (= the child is rather difficult to control.)

[Glenn]

Oh, it has that meaning too. But in this instance it's more like "there were only a handful of people there."

[Cue]

おぉぉ！続々とためになる表現が！
教えてくださってありがとうございます！

なるほど～、handful にそんな使い方もあるんですね。勉強になりました！

Thank you so much, you guys, for all the explanation and information!!

Q

[srintuar]

Originally Posted by Cue

As to 2) and 5), for instance, would "Not a few people watch anime" and "Many people watch anime" sound about the same?

Originally Posted by kokuri

Do both "not a few" and "quite a few" mean "many"?

Ah, in that case I think the person is saying that in such a way to counter the listener's implicit assumption that only a few people watch anime.
Other than special cases like that "not a few" is seldom ever used.
It is equilavent to saying "a significant amount" but less strong than saying "many".

[koruri]

After readning Srin san's reply, I reread this thread again.

Yeah, even in Japanese we have many vague expressions.
I searched about "not a few" and "quite a few" at Space Alc.

THey say "not a few" means "少なからぬ、かなりの数の、相当数の" and give an example "not a few countries in the world"（世界中の少なからざる国々）.
Hmm, when I hear the word "少なからざる", I won't think it meant かなりの数 or たくさんの,,,.
Maybe when I hear the expression 世界中のたくさんの国々、I'll imagine more countruies than 世界中の少なからざる国々.

At the same time, I feel たくさんの国々　is a neutral expression and 少なからざる国々 implies something that the writer wants to say....like the number of those countries is supposed to be small but there are more countries than supposed.

Anyway don't you think many kinds of expressions make the sentence rich?
（Hmmm I want to say とにかく、いろいろな表現方法が文を豊かにすると思い ませんか？）

This is just my feeling and I hope my post makes sense.....
Please ignore my post if you are confused.

I rewrite my post because I don't think I should have used 仮定法 in this sentence.