Spanish Quantifiers

Quantifiers are the words that tell you how much or how many: a lot, a little, enough, too much, all, each. Spanish runs them through a small, tidy family - mucho, poco, bastante, demasiado, tanto - alongside todo (all), cada (each), and a set of ready-made measure phrases. Most of the difficulty sits in one place: the mucho family does two different jobs, and it changes shape for one and not the other.

The mucho family: adjective vs adverb

Here is the whole puzzle in one sentence. When one of these words describes a noun, it is an adjective and it agrees in gender and number. When it describes a verb or an adjective, it is an adverb and it is invariable - it never changes.

Watch mucho do both:

• Hay mucha gente. (There are a lot of people.) - mucha agrees with gente (feminine singular).
• Trabaja mucho. (He works a lot.) - mucho describes the verb trabaja, so it freezes.

Same word, two behaviours. The deciding question is always: what is it describing? A noun means agree; a verb or adjective means freeze.

A few notes on the family. Bastante already ends in -e, so as an adjective it only changes for number, not gender: bastante dinero, bastantes personas. As an adverb it means quite / fairly: es bastante caro (it is quite expensive). Tanto shortens to tan before an adjective or adverb: es tan caro (it is so expensive), but tanto stays full before a noun (tanta hambre) and after a verb (trabaja tanto).

The classic error is agreeing the adverb: es demasiada tarde or trabaja mucha. Both wrong. Tarde is not a noun the word is describing - demasiado is describing how late, so it stays demasiado tarde. When in doubt, ask whether you could swap in a number or an adjective ending. If not, freeze it.

todo: all, every, the whole

Todo agrees fully - todo, toda, todos, todas - and almost always pairs with the article:

• todo el día (all day, the whole day)
• toda la noche (all night)
• todos los días (every day)
• todas las semanas (every week)

Singular todo el / toda la means the whole of something; plural todos los / todas las means every one of a set. There is also the fixed phrase todo el mundo (everybody), which is grammatically singular and takes a singular verb: todo el mundo lo sabe (everybody knows it). And todo can stand alone meaning everything: lo quiero todo (I want it all).

cada: each, every - and invariable

Cada means each or every, and unlike todo it never changes. It takes a singular noun:

• cada día (each day, every day)
• cada persona (each person)
• cada vez (each time)

Its special power is intervals with a number, where todos los cannot go:

• cada dos horas (every two hours)
• cada tres días (every three days)

So cada día and todos los días both mean every day, but cada looks at them one by one while todos los sweeps the whole set together. Only cada does cada dos horas - you cannot say todos los dos horas.

Measure and collective phrases

Spanish has a stock of ready-made phrases for amounts. Most are built with de:

• la mayoría de (most of) - la mayoría de la gente (most people)
• la mayor parte de (the greater part of) - la mayor parte del tiempo (most of the time)
• la mitad de (half of) - la mitad de los estudiantes (half the students)
• un montón de (loads of, a heap of) - un montón de trabajo (loads of work)
• un par de (a couple of) - un par de días (a couple of days)
• una docena de (a dozen) - una docena de huevos (a dozen eggs)
• un poco de (a bit of) and algo de (some) - un poco de agua (a little water), algo de dinero (some money)
• un kilo de (a kilo of) - un kilo de manzanas (a kilo of apples)
• unos cuantos / unas cuantas (a few) - unos cuantos amigos (a few friends)

Note that un poco de and algo de go with uncountable nouns (a bit of water, some money), while unos cuantos and un par de go with countable ones (a few friends, a couple of days).

Verb agreement after la mayoría de

Here is a genuine puzzle. La mayoría is grammatically singular, but when it is followed by de + a plural noun, Spanish overwhelmingly makes the verb agree with the plural noun, not with mayoría:

• La mayoría de los estudiantes trabajan. (Most students work.) - plural trabajan.
• Un grupo de turistas llegaron tarde. (A group of tourists arrived late.) - plural llegaron.

The strictly formal singular (la mayoría trabaja) is defensible, but the plural is more natural and far more common in speech. The same pull towards the plural hits un montón de, la mitad de and un par de when a plural noun follows: la mitad de los libros son míos (half the books are mine).

más de vs más que: how to say "more than"

The last trap. To say more than or less than, Spanish splits on what comes next:

• más de / menos de before a number or quantity: más de cien personas (more than a hundred people), menos de la mitad (less than half), más de mil euros (over a thousand euros).
• más que / menos que for a comparison between two things: sabe más que yo (he knows more than me), corre más que su hermano (she runs more than her brother).

So more than a hundred is más de cien, but more than my brother is más que mi hermano. Quick test: a number after "than" takes de; a person or thing being compared takes que.

Worked examples

• Hay mucha gente, pero pocos hablan inglés. (There are a lot of people, but few speak English.)
• Trabajas demasiado; deberías descansar. (You work too much; you should rest.)
• Voy al gimnasio todos los días, y como algo de fruta cada mañana. (I go to the gym every day, and eat some fruit each morning.)
• La mayoría de mis amigos viven fuera. (Most of my friends live abroad.)
• Había más de cien personas, más que el año pasado. (There were more than a hundred people, more than last year.)

Common mistakes English speakers make

Agreeing the adverb. Es demasiada caro, trabaja mucha - wrong. Next to an adjective or verb, the word freezes: es demasiado caro, trabaja mucho.

Using todos los with a number. "Every two hours" is cada dos horas, never todos los dos horas. Intervals belong to cada.

Making the verb singular after la mayoría de. Say la mayoría de los estudiantes trabajan (plural), not the stiff singular.

Confusing más de and más que. Before a number it is más de cien; in a comparison it is más que yo. Do not mix them.

See also

• Spanish indefinites - alguno, ninguno, cualquiera, and the double negative, the "some / none / any" set that sits beside these quantity words.
• Ser vs estar and por vs para - the other big two-way splits in intermediate Spanish.
• The Spanish grammar cheatsheet collects the adjective-vs-adverb quantifier table on one card.