Determiners

You’ve mastered the basics of English language … almost. Only two more chapters. This one will talk about the many simple but crucial words for making everything work.

I could have sneakily spread them all throughout the course. (And I did, a bit, in the examples.) But I think that would have made it too messy and confusing. That’s why I’m presenting it as one group here.

Determiners are placed in front of a noun to make clear to what it refers

Determiners have 9 subcategories. Fortunately, 5 of them have already been discussed:

• Definite article: the
• Indefinite article: a, an
• Possessive determiners: my, your, his, her, its, our, their
• Quantifiers: a few, a little, much, many, most, some, any, enough, a lot of
• Numbers: zero, one, two, three, four, …

The others are explained in this article.

Demonstratives

Demonstratives have two separate functions:

• Referring to a noun mentioned earlier (in the sentence or paragraph).
• Showing placement or position of something.

They are placed before the noun. If the noun was mentioned previously, they can be used on their own.

Use “close by” if you could hold something in your hand, and “far away” if you would point to it instead. With abstract concepts—not something in the real world—you can choose what to use.

Even when referring, you still follow the close by/far away rules. If you just mentioned something, it is “close by”. If you mentioned something further back, or something more abstract, it is “far away”.

Numbers

Numbers are placed before the noun. The noun, of course, needs to be in plural form if the number is higher than one. I already gave the table of numbers at Nouns: counting.

But those are just the numbers on their own. You probably know numbers are more important than that.

They can be used in some other ways, which require extra rules.

Ranking

The ranking numbers are used to show that something is in a certain order. For example, when you play a competition, people are ranked based on how well they did. Somebody will win and come first. Someone else comes second. And so forth.

The first three ranking numbers are irregular. (Hopefully you see this pattern: the more common and useful a part of English is, the more likely it is irregular.)

• 1st = First
• 2nd = Second
• 3rd = Third

After that, you form ranking numbers with: number + -th.

• 4th = Fourth
• 5th = Fifth
• 10th = Tenth
• 20th = Twentieth
• 100th = Hundredth

As you can see, sometimes the number is slightly changed to make the ending easier to read. (It’s fifth, not fiveth.) There is no clear rule for this: you will learn the special cases over time.

More difficult numbers

All numbers so far were nice. They were “whole numbers” or “integers”.

What if we want to write a fraction, like 3/4? Or 1/3?

Use this construction: numerator (first number) + denominator as rank (second numer).

If the numerator is greater than 1, it means we have multiple pieces of the fraction. So the denominator becomes plural and gets an extra "-s"

But we can go even further. How do we say 3.5? Or 6.29? Or any number with a dot and some decimals behind it?

In this case, we call that dot a point. And then we simply write all the numbers, one by one, in full.

Zero is special

Zero has always been a special number. It, therefore, has four ways to say it:

• Zero if within a regular number
• O (just the letter o) when part of a year, address, time or temperature
• Nil when reporting (sports) scores
• Nought used in scientific formulas and descriptions. Not used in the USA.

Distributives

These distribute a noun among a group. In other words, they say what part of the group applies to the sentence.

It has four different types:

• Each and every: all members of a group, as individuals => Each of them wanted a piece of cake.
• All: the group as a whole => All employees thought the company was doing well.
• Half: only 50% of the group => Half of the citizens were against the proposal.
• Both, either and neither: when talking about two groups or a pair => Both parties agreed te the contract. You and I, we both like the same things.

Difference Words

These point out that two things are different. This means something must come before it. You must mention a certain group, and then, in a later sentence, you can point to a different group with these words.

It has only three variants:

• Another: for singular countable nouns. => Another week went by, this time without another attack.
• Other: for the rest of the singular nouns => Other people think you are a liar.
• Others: for plural nouns => I will ask the others what they think.

Pre-Determiners

These are placed before an adjective to modify it.

Place them before the article (a/an/the). These are very vague and are mostly decoration, or to show an opinion. They are:

• Such and what: to express surprise or other emotions.
• Rather and quite: slightly intensifies the adjective. Can be positive or negative; that depends on the adjective itself.

Conclusion

Most of these words are not that essential. You could get by without them. But they shorten many sentences and simplify referencing things. They also add flair and decoration to your communication.

It feels better to hear “You are such a good listener”. Instead of just “You are a good listener”.

It reads better to say “I am against the idea, but the others might like it”. Instead of “I am against the idea, but the members of the group excluding myself might like it.”

Use these words for that purpose.