Memilih kata pembilang yang tepat
Untuk menjawab pertanyaan How much? dan How many? (Berapa banyak?), kata pembilang tertentu dapat digunakan untuk kata benda yang dapat dihitung (countable noun, seperti teman, gelas, orang), kata benda yang tidak dapat dihitung (uncountable noun, seperti gula, teh, uang), dan semua jenis kata benda.
| Hanya untuk kata benda yang tidak dapat dihitung | Untuk semua jenis kata benda | Hanya untuk kata benda yang dapat dihitung |
|---|---|---|
| a little | no, none, not any | a few |
| a bit of | some | a number of |
| any | several | |
| a great deal of | a lot of, lots of | a great number of |
| a large amount of | plenty of | a large number of |
Contoh
- Would you like some tea and a few cookies?
- I always put a little milk and some carrots in my soup.
- He has several apples. I don't have any fruit at all.
- She has plenty of clothes for the winter.
- I recieved a large amount of feedback from my survey.
Menggunakan Much dan Many
Much dan many umumnya digunakan dalam kalimat negatif dan interogatif (pertanyaan). Keduanya juga digunakan dalam kalimat positif dan negatif, dikombinasikan dengan too dan so. Catatan: Kata many dapat digunakan sendirian dalam kalimat positif, sedangkan kata much tidak bisa. Dalam kalimat positif, much digantikan dengan a lot atau lots of (ekspresi-ekspresi ini juga dapat menggantikan many).
| Kata benda yang tidak dapat dihitung | Kata benda yang dapat dihitung |
|---|---|
| How much sugar do you have? | How many people came to the concert? |
| There's not much sugar at the store. | Not many people came to the concert. |
| I have too much sugar at home. | There were too many people at the concert. |
| I don't know what to do with so much sugar. | It's a problem when there are so many people. |
| I wish there was not so much sugar here. | There were not so many people last year. |
| There is a lot of sugar in candy. | There are many people who want to come. = There are a lot of people who want to come. |