Question

Fill in the blank with the appropriate option
She speaks good Spanish, but only ______ Russian.
a) A few
b) A lot of
c) much
d) A little

Answer 1

Hint: Countable and uncountable nouns are described by adjectives of quantity. Since the object here is a language (Russian) which is obviously uncountable, we have to use the appropriate adjective of quantity. The given question implies that the girl speaks more Spanish than Russian probably because she does not know Russian much. Choose the appropriate adjective of quantity accordingly.

Complete answer:
Option d is the correct answer because a little is used for uncountable nouns. A little soup, a little coffee, etc. If we use option d, the sentence reads "She speaks good Spanish, but only a little Russian". This sentence implies that she is fluent in Spanish but not so fluent in Russian because she does not know much of it.
Option a is the wrong answer because "a few" is used with nouns that are countable. A few marbles, a few pieces of chicken, etc. "A few Russian" is completely wrong.
Option b is wrong because "a lot of" is not the appropriate option while referring to language. We say a lot of work, a lot of garbage, etc. but we don't use it while talking about a language.
Option c is wrong because it changes the meaning of the sentence. Using option c makes it sound like she knows a lot of Russian too which is incorrect.

Note:
 Sometimes some adjectives of quantity are used for both countable and uncountable nouns so it is sometimes difficult to demarcate them strictly. Thus, always use the option in the sentence to see if it sounds correct.