Många vs. Mycket Posted by Marcus Cederström on Sep 15, 2011 in Grammar
Jenny’s post on Hur mycket kostar det? definitely hit a nerve, not just because I am a poor student again and ask that question all the time, but because it did a wonderful job of demonstrating a very important “how” question. One that in this case uses mycket – much.
But there is another “how” question that is quite similar, “hur många?” How many?
Essentially, you want to use många when there is something that is individually countable. Like apples. Or books. Mycket, on the other hand, gets used for things that are still quantifiable, but not really countable. Like snow. Or food. We can quantify snow in that this many inches fell, but chances are you would never say that 3,700,000,013 snows (or snowflakes if we actually want to be grammatical) fell last night. So, logically, we would not count snow.
For example:
Många:
Jag åt många äpplen. I ate many apples. I can count exactly how many individual apples I ate.
Jag har många böcker. I have many books. I can count exactly how many individual books I have.
Mycket:
Det snöar mycket. It is snowing a lot. I can quantify it. Kind of. But I can’t count exactly how many individual snows have fallen.
Jag köpte mycket mat. I bought a lot of food. I can quantify it. Kind of. But I can’t count exactly how many individual foods I have.
Now that you’ve had a few examples, it’s your turn. Below you’ll find a few examples to get you started in practicing using mycket vs. många. Remember, många should be used with something you can easily (and logically) count. Like books. Mycket should be used with something you (logically) can’t count. Like snow.
Talar du __________________ språk?
Det finns ______________________ bananer i väskan.
Jag älskar dem _____________________.
De pratar inte ____________________________.
Hassan talar ______________________ på konferensen.
Min mormor skiver ________________________ brev.
Det finns _____________________________ väckarklockor på hotellet.
Dricker du ________________________ kaffe på morgonen?
Det finns _________________________ stolar i klassrummet.
Jag cyklar ________________.
Answers will follow in the days to come. In the meantime, good luck with the above and feel free to post questions below.
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About the Author: Marcus Cederström
Marcus Cederström has been writing for the Transparent Swedish Blog since 2009. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Oregon, a Master's Degree in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a PhD in Scandinavian Studies and Folklore from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He has taught Swedish for several years and still spells things wrong. So, if you see something, say something.
Comments:
Henri:
Hur många skiver kann mormor göra från ett brev?
Selin:
I bumped into this sentence “Jag läser mycket böcker.”, which was translated as “I read a lot of books.”, and found this article upon a confusion caused by the sentence. I see that the difference between “mycket” and “många” is similar to the one between “much” and “many”. In this case, is it the translation that reads wrong? Would it be correct to say “I read books a lot.” instead? Thanks!
Marcus Cederström:
@Selin This is one of those tricky examples of mycket vs. många. Here it seems like someone is saying they read a lot of books. So many they can’t actually count all of the books they read. Although, it’s also one of those cases that is going to rely a lot on context in terms of how it is translated. Not a great answer, I know, but hopefully it helps a little.