“the population of”和 “a population of”在表示人口數(shù)量的時(shí)候并沒有明顯的區(qū)別。它們都用來描述某地或者某個(gè)群體的居民人數(shù),只是后者可以加上修飾詞來更準(zhǔn)確地表達(dá)意思。例如,“the population of China”(中國的人口)或 "a large/small population of China"(中國的一個(gè)大/小群體)。值得注意的是,"population"這個(gè)詞本身就含有數(shù)量的含義,所以不需要再加量詞如"many","few"等來表示數(shù)量大小。比如正確的說法是:“China has a large population.” 而不是 “China has many people.”