Hi guys and welcome back to Love English I'm Leila and today I'm going to help
clarify the use and meaning of two words in English and 'much' and 'many' are
frequently confused in English the grammar really isn't too difficult
however the challenge will not necessarily be much and many but it will
be more to do with countable and uncountable nouns in English these can
be a little bit confusing because often in your native language nouns that are
uncountable in English are countable in your language gets confusing there but
I'm going to explain it and help you understand when to use much and many
depending on whether a noun is countable or uncountable
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so make sure you comment below today and use much many and uncountable nouns or
countable nouns correctly so in today's lesson I'm going to use a cup of tea
this is very British of me but I will be using a cup of tea to illustrate how we
use much and many differently and the problem with nouns in English and why
they get a little bit confusing how much do you guys love a cup of tea how many
cups of tea do you drink a day in those sentences you could see me
using both much and many now first of all let's understand why we use much and
many they are quantifiers they tell us how much or how little we have of
something so the easiest explanation of much and many is this quite simply much
is used with uncountable nouns and many is used with countable now in the case
of tea tea is a liquid we can't count it we can't say one liquid to liquid three
liquid in the same way that we could say one apple two apples three apples so we
would use much with liquid how much tea do you drink but if we're referring to
the cup that the tea is in this is countable and therefore we can say one
cup two cups three cups there you can see as well with countable nouns we
would add a plural s on the end of the noun so we know there is
more than one so quite simply we would use much and many with question forms
with negatives I don't have much tea I don't have many cups but in a positive
form we would only really use many to use much in the positive form is unusual
it's possible but only when you are speaking very very formally so let's
look at money as an example not just tea let's leave the tea for now so money is
an uncountable noun and therefore we need to use it with much now we can say
how much money do you have I don't have much money but we wouldn't usually say I
have much money you could use it in this way but it does sound rather formal and
it is much more common to say I have a lot of money or lots of money in this
case a lot of is more neutral and lots of is a little bit more informal that's
the only difference there with a lot and lots of so with many we can use it with
positive negative and question forms how many people are there there aren't many
people there are many people here tonight again it is a little bit more
common to use a lot of or lots of with many however it's not as problematic as
using much in the affirmative to say I have much money or I have much time that
sounds really unusual and generally not acceptable in English so now that we
understand much and many let's try and understand countable and uncountable
nouns in English uncountable nouns in English are nouns that cannot be
quantified in the sense that we can't count them that makes sense doesn't it
we can't say 1 money - money 3 money we would say 1 pound
two pounds three pounds we could talk perhaps about the the currency in terms
of countable but money itself is a little bit more
abstract in the same way we can't quantify it nouns like love it's an
abstract noun you can't say I love you ten it might sound like a lot but it's
just not logical so abstract ideas or qualities like beauty for example you
can't say she is ten beauty it's just not quantifiable and of course it's
things that are really really small tiny tiny but you can't count them rice sand
hair I mean you could try and count your hair but it would be pretty strange
liquid as I said earlier gases and also powders you can't count powder you can
quantify it in terms of its amount in weight perhaps but you wouldn't quantify
in terms of numbers it doesn't have a plural S on the end so some examples of
uncountable nouns that we would use with much would be tea coffee these liquids
are uncountable however you can say I'll have two coffees in this case you're not
referring to the liquid but you're referring to the cup other nouns also
include sugar but again sugar can be quantified you could refer to it as a
teaspoon of sugar a lump of sugar a cube of sugar so if someone says how many
sugars do you take they're not referring to sugar being a countable noun but
they're referring to a cube of sugar or a teaspoon of sugar so you can say I'll
have two sugars please ah rice knowledge Beauty anger fear love money as I said
before research safety and evidence are all some of the uncountable nouns we
have in English so how much sugar do you eat do you eat much sugar how much do
you love me I don't love her very much but not I
love her much it would be I love her a lot when you want to use the positive
form now as I said earlier the problem with uncountable nouns is that in
English many of these uncountable nouns are
actually countable in your language some of these include words like advice news
information furniture time and homework can you believe it
homework is actually uncountable you wouldn't say homeworks you would say how
much homework do you have not how many homeworks do you have so this is where
you need to pay attention in English you need to make sure that the noun you are
using is actually in fact countable in English don't assume because it is
countable in your language it will be countable in English now where we do
have nouns like advice information and news we can quantify them by adding a
quantifier so what we would often do is say a piece of advice or we could use
some advice he gave me a great piece of advice I've heard some information I've
heard a really interesting piece of news but not a news you would not use an
article with them in the singular there's quite a lot of information here
and I think probably we're going to need another lesson on quantifiers with
countable and uncountable nouns another important piece of information is the
fact that there are some nouns that can be both countable and uncountable my
favorite example is chocolate chocolate can be uncountable think about chocolate
it is a solid liquid of sorts so we wouldn't actually refer to chocolate as
being countable however when we're referring to bars of chocolate or
individual chocolates in a box then they can actually be countable
so does get a little bit confusing but just think can you actually count these
nouns one two three four and then hopefully you'll understand whether it's
countable or uncountable remembering of course that uncountable nouns are
generally abstract things that are really really tiny so it's just
ridiculous to try and count them like hair and as well
powders gases and remember when you do want to use a positive form with
uncountable nouns you can use a lot of or lots of you can use this both with
uncountable and countable nouns but many can be used with question forms
negatives and positive sentences so now we're gonna have a go and do a little
quiz ten sentences to see if you can guess whether we need a lot of much or
many number one we don't have time before the train arrives we don't have
time before the train arrives it's a question here so would we need much or
many we don't have much time before the train arrives time is uncountable number
two a negative sentence there weren't people at the party there weren't people
at the party it's another negative so we need much or
many people are they countable or uncountable people but we said people
are not people so it's actually many there weren't many people at the party
people is an irregular plural we don't have an S on the end a bit like children
we can count people one person two people number three she didn't have
money she didn't have money money countable or uncountable can we say one
two three money's no we can't it is uncountable so
she didn't have much money and before a question do you have friends do you have
friends look there we've got a noun with a plural s so do you have many friends
friends are countable and I hope you do have many friends number five probably
very true for me we ate chocolate today we ate chocolate
today this is a positive sentence talking about a large amount we ate a
lot of chocolate today a lot of we wouldn't say we ate much chocolate
unless we're trying to be very very formal it does sound unusual much more
common to say we ate lots of or a lot of however we could say we ate many
chocolates because many can be used in the positive and chocolate can be both
countable and uncountable number six how cards does she have how cars does she
have cars or less how many cars does she have Oh
number seven is a little bit tricky there wasn't traffic today
there wasn't traffic today traffic it's that going to be countable or
uncountable
well cars accountable there wasn't much traffic today
traffic is again uncountable you wouldn't say traffic's okay liquids
remember do we use much or many and this is in the positive form sabra drinks
coffee sabra drinks coffee
sabra drinks a lot of coffee coffee is uncountable but of course when we are
referring to coffees we mean two cups but in this case I'm just talking
generally about the liquid and in the positive form so I can't say sabra
drinks much coffee I can say she drinks a lot of coffee a very common mistake
that people make did she give you advice did she give you advice advice countable
or uncountable much or many did she give you much advice
you wouldn't say did she give you many advice it is uncountable in the same way
we would never say advices we'd say a piece of advice or some advice and
finally number 10 whoa that baby has of hair whoa that baby has of hair in this
case at the positive form the affirmative sentence well that baby has
a lot of hair hair is uncountable and we would use a lot rather than much hair we
can't say many hairs we wouldn't count the hairs on the baby's head alright
guys I hope that lesson was helpful and you were able to understand the
difference of when to use much and many and as well the difference between
countable and uncountable nouns make sure that you like this lesson if I get
a positive response to this lesson then I'll know that you want to learn more
about how to use countable and uncountable nouns and the quantifiers
you can use with them and I can make another lesson on this subject so thank
you so much for watching and don't forget to comment below try using much
and many in some sentences this is such a common area for people to make errors
so it is worth trying to use them and of course don't forget to let us know what
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pronunciation lessons you would like to help you improve your English thank you
very much for watching bye