Nouns, articles & quantity · CEFR B1 · Independent

all / both — English nouns and articles

Both is exactly two; all is any number above that. Neither takes "the" straight after it unless "of" comes in between.

The shape

all (of) + plural · both (of) + two things

Include everything, or exactly two things.

In Hindi

both ठीक दो के लिए, all उससे ज़्यादा के लिए। बीच में "of" न हो तो "the" नहीं आता।

CoCap explains every structure in both languages, because a rule you understand in Hindi is a rule you can use in English.

The mistake to fix first

The sentence Indian-English speakers actually produce, and the reason it is wrong.

Commonly said	Correct English
All the my friends came.	All my friends came. You cannot have "the" and "my" together — drop the "the".

Commonly said

Correct English

All the my friends came.

All my friends came.

You cannot have "the" and "my" together — drop the "the".

Easy to confuse with

Close enough to be mixed up with this one. Knowing the difference is most of knowing either.

Questions people ask

What is the all / both used for?: Both is exactly two; all is any number above that. Neither takes "the" straight after it unless "of" comes in between. In practice: include everything, or exactly two things.
How do you form the all / both?: all (of) + plural · both (of) + two things.
What is the most common mistake with the all / both?: Saying “All the my friends came.” instead of “All my friends came.”. You cannot have "the" and "my" together — drop the "the".

Where all / both fits

Where this structure sits in the ladder, and what surrounds it.

all / both is a CEFR B1 structure — the independent band — and it belongs to nouns, articles & quantity. CoCap’s syllabus files every structure this way so you can learn in order instead of jumping between whatever a search happened to return.

Reading it is not the same as saying it.

CoCap turns this page into practice: Hindi sentence in, English sentence out, corrected one thing at a time. Free, no card.

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