一些 - a few (plural) 一点儿 - a few, a little of something (singular). Examples: 昨天晚上我吃了一些鱼儿 - I ate a few small fish yesterday (like actually more than one - maybe 3-7 small fishes 昨天晚上我吃了一点儿鱼儿 - I ate a little fish yesterday (this could be like a small portion, or simply less than an entire fish) 昨天晚上我看了一些书 - I read a few books - you read a few books yesterday evening - like you actually sat down and read a few books cover to cover over a period of time. You could say that during the Christmas holidays you had lots of 闲暇 and you read 一些书 昨天晚上我看了一点儿书 - I read a little yesterday evening - this could describe your bedtime reading. Sometimes when I read a couple of chapters of a book I tell me friends I read 一点儿书 I can't think of any more good examples right now, but I hope I have made it clear. Laurence

一、Seems I once answered a similar question. 二、In my opinion, 一点(儿) is similar to “a small/little quantity of sth”. So according to the use of 'quantity', we can put 'coutable' and 'uncountable' nouns after 一点(儿)。Normally, we put a coutable noun which is relatively small in figure/size and uncountable nouns after 一点儿。 For example: 我昨天买了一点儿花生。I bought a small quantify of peanuts. 我中午吃了一点儿牛肉。I ate a smalle quantity of beef. 三、In the above examples, we can (**but not always can**) put countable and uncountable nouns after "一点儿". As stated before, if a countable noun is put after '一点儿', it should be relatively small in figure/size and its quantity/数量 can't be counted/known at first sight. 1). For example, 花生/peanut, 种子/seed, 豆子/beans, 葵花籽/sunflower seeds etc. 2). If the size is not so small, but the overall quantity is still small to me, I would also use 一点儿. For example,'我昨天买了(一)点儿苹果'. Sometimes 一 is omitted. 3). Seems, we normally don't use '一点儿' to modify relative larger animals, like cats, dogs. The reason may be that normally we only have one or two cats. It can be a habit, not language.

一点儿－a little; a bit; small amount (thimbleful) 一些 - some （both plural and singular) Like “Some food" in Chinese is "一些食物“. In this case, 食物 (food) is singular right? 一些 simply means some in English. Examples: 一些：Chinese: 他的发言给我们一些启迪。 English: His speech gave us some enlightenment. 一点儿：Chinese: 我多少懂一点儿西班牙语。 English: I have only a little Spanish. So it's not difficult when you think about their counterparts in English. 一点儿：a little （a bit） 一些： some I hope this helps. :)

Hi Alberto! First at all, Chinese grammar doesn't have the concept of countable or uncountable, because we have "number+measure word+noun" to count anything. So if you understand the difference of 些 and little with English language concept of countable or uncountable, it can't work well here although with the similarities in languages, it can work in many other examples. Secondly, it is grammatically correct to say "一点猫" when 猫 is dead. You can use both 一些 and 一点 in any nouns when they refer to things don't have life. The only difference is the quantity, 一些 means some while 一点 means a little, so 一些 has more in quantity than 一点. On the other hand, you can only use 一些 with nouns referring to creatures with life. So you can see that 一些 can be used with any nouns while 一点 can be used with any nouns except nouns referring to life alive. For example: 我吃了一些鱼。 我吃了一点鱼。 Both are correct. Here 鱼 is made into dish, it is non-life object. 我看了一些书。 我看了一点书。 Both are correct. 书 is non-life object. 商店有一些人。 商店有一点人。*wrong 人 is a living creature, you don't use 点 here. I hope this clears out your confusion, Best regards, Shanmei

Take a look at these excerpts from a few grammar books: http://we.tl/U7J1H8JDR0