Much, Many and A Lot

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In today's post we shall discuss about the usage of Much, Many and A Lot. These three indicate a large quantity of something, for example "I have a lot of friends " means I have a large quantity of friends. These three are (much, many and a lot) are quantifiers. Now lets see some examples to demonstrate the usage of Much, Many and A Lot.

• How much money have you got?
• I haven't got much money.
• I have got a lot.
• I have got a lot of money.
• How many students are in the classroom?
• There aren't many.
• There are a lot.
• There are a lot of/lots of students.

In the interrogative forms we use :

• Much with uncountable nouns. (money, bread, water...)

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

In the negative forms we use :

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

In the affirmative forms we use :

• A lot, A lot of, lots of with countable and uncountable nouns.
• Ex :
• "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"..

In formal written English :

• It is also possible (and preferable) to use many and much rather than a lot of, lots of and a lot in formal written English. 
• Ex :
• There are many students. 
• Much time was spent on studying.

Remember friends, if you're speaking or writing to friends (informal), use a lot, a lot of, lots of. But if you want to be more formal, perhaps it is preferable to use much and many.

Some more points to Remember :

• In affirmative sentences with so, as or too, we also use much / many.
• Ex :
• "Ramani has so many friends."
• "She has as many friends as Mohana."
• "Mohan has too much money."

Now lets see the detailed view of the points mentioned above :

Interrogative	Negative	Affirmative
How many books are there?	There aren'tmany.	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 gotmuch.	I've got a lot.
		I've got a lot of money.
		I've got lots of money.
		I have got much money (formal)

Thats all for now Friends . Hope you liked this post...