Much, Many, Or, A Lot Of

Much Many A Lot Of:

Much, many, and a lot are quantifiers. They indicate a large quantity of something. For example, “I have a lot of friends” means I have a large number of friends. “I don’t have much money” means I don’t have a large amount of money.

Much, Many, and A lot with countable and Uncountable Nouns

The choice between “much,” “many,” and “a lot” depends on whether the noun is countable or uncountable.

Many For Uncountable Nouns:

• Definition: “Much” is used with uncountable nouns (e.g., money, bread, water)
• Examples:
  • Question: How much money have you got?
  • Answer: I haven’t got much money.

Many For Countable Nouns:

• Definition: “Many” is used with countable nouns (e.g., students, desks, windows).
• Examples:
  • Question: How many students are in the classroom?
  • Answer: There aren’t many.

Countable Nouns	Uncountable Nouns
How many friends have you got?	How much patience have you got?
I have a lot.	I have a lot.
I have a lot of friends.	I have a lot of patience.
I haven’t got many friends.	I haven’t got much patience.

Positive, Negative, and Questions

In the interrogative forms we use:

• Much with uncountable nouns. (money, bread, water…)
  • Example:
    • How much money/bread/water…is there?
• Many with countable nouns. (students, desks, windows…)
  • Example:
    • How many students/teachers/desks… are there?

(See the lesson on countable and countable nouns )

In the negative forms we use:

• Much with uncountable nouns. (money, bread, water…)
  • Example:
    • I haven’t got much money/bread/water…
• Many with countable nouns. (students, desks, windows…)
  • Example:
    • There aren’t many students/teachers/desks…

In the affirmative forms:

In spoken English and informal writing we tend to use:

• A lot, a lot of, lots of with countable and uncountable nouns.
• Example:
  • “How many students are there in the classroom?”
  • “There are a lot.”
  • “How many students are there in the classroom?”
  • “There are a lot of / lots of students”.

Interrogative	Negative	Affirmative
How many books are there?	There aren’t many.	There are a lot. There are a lot of books. There are lots of books. There are many books (formal).
How much money have you got?	I haven’t got much.	I’ve got a lot. I’ve got a lot of money. I’ve got lots of money.

Much And Many With “SO”, “Too”, and “AS”

In affirmative sentences with so, as, or too, we also use much/many.

Examples:

• “Carla has so many friends.”
• “She has as many friends as Sue.”
• “Kevin has too much money.”

Summary:

Interrogative	Negative	Affirmative
How many books are there?	There aren’t many.	There are a lot. There are a lot of books. There are lots of books.
How much money have you got?	I haven’t got much.	I’ve got a lot. I’ve got a lot of money. I’ve got lots of money.

More on much man a lot of here.

Related Materials:

• Exercise on much, many or a lot
• See also “countable and uncountable nouns”
• See also “A Little And A Few”