Hey! What's up! Welcome to Series English! My name is Antonia Romaker
and today we will compare small and little. Do you confuse these?
Do you think they are absolutely the same? Well truth be told they aren't.
First of all let's talk about size, in this respect small and little are very close they are practically interchangeable.
We can say: They lived in a small house in the country, meaning not large.
And we can say: They lived in a little house in the country. Both sentences are okay, they are fine.
However I need to point out that little presupposes sympathy so it can imply sympathy.
Thus it can be used with words like nice, sweet, pretty, poor, tiny, and so.
He's only a little boy! Give him a break! I feel sorry for him!
Do not harm him! Do not shout at him! He is only a little boy.
They live in a tiny little apartment. Even though it is small, it is still nice and cozy and I feel good about it.
So that's why I say: They live in a tiny little apartment, it's cute.
One more example for you: She is a sweet little thing, always has a smile on her face.
Now speaking about quantity little is used when we talk about quantity a lot, meaning not much.
I have a little money.
Money is an uncountable noun, we can use small here, but we need to add an additional word.
I have a small amount of money.
By the way if you do not remember the difference between 'I have little money'
and 'I have a little money' then watch my other class,
devoted to the difference between little and a little, few and a few. But now we move on.
Now when we deal with countable nouns, the things which we can count, like people, like books, fingers.
You can count them. In this case we can use only small and we need to add the word number.
A small number of people read classics. Do not use little with countable nouns be careful.
In addition small has a comparative and superlative form, when we compare things.
Somebody is smaller, or when something is the smallest object.
While little has no such forms. For example you can say: Mary is smaller than Jack. She's smaller, physically.
Little can be used for modifying and you can use sentences like this: I am a little tired.
Not too much, just a bit. I'm a little tired. I'm a little fat.
And at the end of this class I want to give you two more examples.
Jack is small for his age. Here we usually talk about the size, the height.
He is small, not too high, not too big.
Mary is just a little girl. And here we mean young. Well we can talk about the size and use little,
But it's not that common. Small is more physical than little usually.
However pay attention to the context. Usually the context helps us a lot to understand
what the speaker means. Is he talking about the size or the age.
Small man, little man. When we say a small man, usually we talk about the height again or the size.
And when we say a little man, it can mean that it is somebody not important.
Anyway that's it for today! I hope that you enjoyed this class! If you did do not forget to press the button!
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Anyway that's it, hope to see you soon! Happy English and Russian practice! Bye!