Lesson titled "Quelque/quelques vs Un peu de/peu de"

Question

The following sentence in the lesson under subtitle "[un] peu de" is unclear: Used with uncountable quantities, un peu de means a little, a bit of ... and peu de means little, not much of, few. It sounds like the uncountable quantities phrase refers to both un peu de and to peu de. This doesn't jive with the two examples that follow, in that, while argent is not countable (can't have 4 moneys), ami is countable (can have 4 friends). Stephanie's comment in the discussion section clears this up, where she says Peu is few as in not many/much, and you can use that with countables and uncountables alike. I'm suggesting that the lesson sentence should be reworded to make this point clear.

Accepted Answer

Yes, I agree with Don, this section of the lesson is worded a bit ambiguously. The principle, however, is simpler than you think:
With uncountable nouns you can use either peu de or un peu de with the according difference in meaning:
J'ai un peu de lait. -- I have a little milk.J'ai peu de lait. -- I have little milk.
With countable nouns you can only use peu de and NOT un peu de:
J'ai peu d'amis. -- I have few friends. You can't say, J'ai un peu d'amis -- I have a little friends. Note also that in English, "little" changes to "few" when you're talking about countable items.
If you want to say "I have a few friends", you'd express that as J'ai quelques amis. In this case "a few" carries the meaning of "several".

Answer

Bonjour Don,Thank you for you comment! After discussing within the French team, we've amended it and re-worded this part of the lesson. I hope this is helpful.Bonne journée !