English with Darren

I often hear my learners say things like 'I have many colleagues in the US.' and 'I had much work last week.'  A lot of is better here.  Look at the table below.  Can you see why?

In English, we don't normally use much and many in positive sentences.  It's more natural to use a lot of.  You can use a lot of with both countable and uncountable nouns.

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A countable noun is something that you can count.  Chair, office and colleague are examples of countable nouns:

One chair / office / colleague

Two chairs / offices / colleagues

Three chairs / offices / colleagues.

The noun work in the sentence at the top is uncountable. Other examples of uncountable nouns in English are information and money.

We cannot say:

One work / information / money

Two works / informations / moneys.

We use not many with countable nouns and not much with uncountable nouns.

I don't have many colleagues in the US.
I didn't have much work last week.

A lot of, many and much are called quantifiers in English and we use them with nouns when we want to talk about amounts (quantities).  Other examples of quantifiers in English are some, any, lots of. 

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