Quelque(s) vs (un) peu de = A couple/a few vs a bit of/few (indefinite adjectives)

Hi Rob,

peu is the opposite of beaucoup. And quelques is "a few". Maybe you could say peu is "few" and quelques is "a few"  

However you want to translate this into English, it's best to try grasp the meaning in French first. Often it isn't possible to make a 1:1 correspondence between English and French. 

-- Chris. 

See my reply to your later post. 

Hi K,

In my experience, a couple of, in English is used for 2 or thereabouts.

We don't have such an expression for very small approximate quantities in French as they start with the number 10:

Une dizaine, une vingtaine, une trentaine etc.. which mean about 10, 20, 30 ...

so Quelques, meaning a few, ( an indeterminate small quantity) can be some, a few or a couple of depending on the context.

Some will often be 'des'.

Hope this helps!

Hi Nabeel,

yes, there's a slight difference in meaning.

un peu d'argent -- a bit of money.
peu d'argent -- little money.

For example:

Il ne me faut qu'un peu d'argent pour ça. -- I only need a little bit of money for that.
Il est pauvre. Il a peu d'argent. -- He is poor. He is little money.

Hope that helps, -- Chris (not a native speaker).

Because there is an amount specified for the milk ("un peu") you don't use the article, just "de". If you say "je voudrais du lait' you're just asking for some milk, no amount specified, hence the article which makes "de" to "du". There is a specific lesson dedicated to the partitive article. -- Chris (not a native speaker).

Thank you, I now understand.

Bonjour Stewart !

Indeed, with expression of quantity like "beaucoup de, un peu de...", you will only use "du" if you mean "a lot of the, a bit of the", as such:

Here's our lesson about partitive articles:
https://french.kwiziq.com/revision/grammar/du-de-la-de-l-are-used-to-express-some-or-any-partitive-articles

I hope that's helpful!
À bientôt !

Bonjour Doraida ! Here the distinction is about whether to use "un peu de" (uncountable) versus "peu de" (countable): you will need the "de" in both cases. I hope that's helpful! À bientôt !

Thank you I think I understand now

Aurélie, I recommend making the distinction between "a few friends" translated as "quelques" and "few friends" translated as "peu de" clearer in this lesson. As wriiten in the lesson, the usage of quelques and peu de appears to depend on countable and uncountable things. quelques (plural)

Used with countable things it means a couple of, some, a few.

[un] peu de 

Used with uncountable quantities, un peu de means a little, a bit of

I think I worked it out sorry...

Il a quelques amis = he has A FEW friends

Il a peu d'amis = he has FEW friends

Exactement Andrew :)

J'ai fait le même erreur. On peut toujours profiter de lire les questions. ;-)