“Enough” and “too” are words used to express adequacy or excessiveness in different contexts.
“Enough” comes before a noun and indicates sufficiency:
- “I’ve got enough money.” (I have an adequate amount of money.)
For example, if you say, “I don’t need any more glasses,” you mean that you have a sufficient number of glasses, so you can say, “I have enough glasses.”
“Too” can be used before a noun with “much” and “many” to indicate excess:
- “I’ve got too many sandwiches.” (I have an excessive amount of sandwiches.)
- “I haven’t got enough money.” (I don’t have an adequate amount of money.)
- “I have got too much time.” (I have an excessive amount of time.)
- “She has got too much food.” (She has an excessive amount of food.)
For example, when you say, “I have got lots of extra papers,” you actually mean “too many papers” to emphasize the excess.
When used with adjectives:
- “Enough” comes after the adjective:
- “The food is hot enough.” (The food is adequately hot.)
- “It is not warm enough.”
- “Too” comes before the adjective:
- “It is too hot.” (It is excessively hot.)
- “The weather is too cold.”
When used with adverbs:
- “Enough” comes after the adverb:
- “Does she run fast enough?” (Is her running speed sufficient?)
- “Too” comes before the adverb:
- “Does she speak too loudly?” (Does she speak excessively loudly?)
Note: If you want to add a purpose or an additional piece of information, you can use “-to” with “too”:
- “It is too hot to walk.” (It is excessively hot for walking.)
- “It’s not light enough to read.” (It is not sufficiently bright for reading.)
These examples illustrate how “enough” and “too” are used to convey different degrees of sufficiency or excessiveness in both noun and adjective contexts.