Few / a few, little / a little, fewer /less

Sometimes it's difficult to know when to use few or a few, little or a little. First of all, we should know that few is used with plural nouns, whereas little is used with uncountable nouns, which are always singular.
There are few apples in the basket.
We have little hope of success.
Without articles, few and little have a rather negative meaning: not much / many.
In the above examples:
There are few apples in the basket = There are not many apples
We have little hope of success= There is not much hope.
On the other hand, a few and a little (with the article) have a positive meaning: there is not much or many, but at least there is something!, which is better than nothing.
In the example:
We don´t need to go shopping: there's a little milk in the fridge and a few apples and eggs. That will do for dinner.
We can notice how the use of a before little and few gives us a positive feeling.
Fewer is the comparative form of few and less is the comparative of little.
There are fewer students in my class this year.
He earns less money than me.
However, many English speakers use less with plural  nouns, which is considered incorrect by many gammarians.
The superlative form of few is the fewest; the least is the superlative of little
This antidepressant has the fewest side effects.
Don't thank me. That's the least I could do for you.
Exercises:
Few / a few / little / a little
fewer / less, etc.

Adverbs and adjectives

Adjectives qualify a noun while adverbs modify verbs. In fact, the word "adverb" means "next to a verb" in latin. 
Many adverbs derive from adjectives. Most of them are formed by adding the suffix -ly to the adjective. The adjectives ending in -ble just drop the final -e and add  -y, while those adjectives that end in -y drop it and add -ily. Some examples are:
quick   quickly
comfortable    comfortably
happy     happily
Exceptions:
good     well 
fast      fast
hard    hard*


*We shouldn't confuse the words hard  and hardly. They  are both adverbs but have different meanings: hard means rough or difficult, whereas hardly means barely or not much. Can you see the difference between "working hard" and "hardly working"?


Watch this presentation and do the exercises below:

Adverbs and Adjectives
View more presentations from yolyordam yolyordam.


Adverb or adjective?
Answer key to the exercises in the presentation

The present perfect tense

Watch this presentation and then do the exercises below:

Present Perfect (1)

View more presentations from Achkasov.
The present perfect with just, yet, already
Put the verbs in brackets in the present perfect
For or since?
Have you ever...?

Present perfect test

Countable and uncountable nouns

Watch this presentation about countable and uncountable nouns and then do the exercises below.

Countable and uncountable nouns from Inma Dominguez

EXERCISES

Decide which nouns are countable and which nouns are uncountable
Food partitive exercises
Partitive crossword
Choose the correct partitive
A /an / some /any

Vale a pena ficar de olho nesse blog award

This blog has just received this award from one of the persons I've been following since I started blogging five months ago: Patricia Pérez Miguel, from Buenos Aires, Argentina. This means that for her, this blog is one of ten blogs worth visiting and I feel honoured! Thank you very much Patricia!
Here is my list of ten blogs worth visiting:
The English You Need Blog
Free Technology for Teachers
Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the day
A Walk in the Words
Wordmall
Alpozo's Phonetic Blog
DCblog
Wordorigins
Mi cuaderno digital
Pasión en el hielo

Volcanoes

A volcano of unpronounceable name, the Eyjafjallajökull, in Iceland, is causing havoc in airports in Europe and all over the world. Who doesn't know a person that has been caught in this nightmare of cancelled flights and left stranded in a foreign country, or at home deprived of the long-awaited holidays?

Image: 'Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull Volcano, Iceland April 17+[Detail]'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24662369@N07/4530571303

I have always been intrigued by volcanos. They are one of the biggest and most powerful mysteries of Nature. The old Romans believed that the god Vulcanus, son of Jupiter, had his smithy underneath Mount Etna, in Sicily. So whenever this volcano was active, they thought it was Vulcanus, the blacksmith, hitting on the iron to manufacture arms and armours for the heroes. Isn't it fantastic how mythology interprets Nature?

The Forge of Vulcan, by Diego Velázquez

In 1783, another volcano in Iceland, called Laki, produced so much poisonous gas that it killed thousands of people, and the consequences were felt not only in Iceland, but also in far away places like Egypt, where one sixth of the population died of famine caused by the low flow of the river Nile, due to the alterations of the African monsoon.
To know a bit more about the different types of volcanos watch this video and then answer the questions.