Hi Juhee!

Thanks for asking a great question!

To answer your question,

"it is likely that the guests will arrive any time in [the] next few hours."

One reason why there is no "a" is because the article in this sentence is 'the' in front of the word "next."
So here, "a" is being replaced by "the" because of the word "next.”

If you were to get rid of “the next” then you could say "it is likely that the guests will arrive any time in a few hours." instead.
Once you do this, you can tell the sentence is grammatically awkward without the “a” (“it is likely that the guests will arrive any time in few hours.”)

One thing I would like to mention is, yes, there are often distinctions between "a few" and "few" in English, but it is very likely you might not see this pattern every time. There are going to be many instances where this "a few" vs "few" rule might not apply in a very straightforward manner. Like I said in the video, this is often a common problem even among people who only speak English. I know things like this can be confusing, but that's just how English is sometimes!

I hope this helps and happy new year!

Stay safe,

- Mason (Instructor)

It is very helpful :)
thank you so much Mason!
Happy new year!!