Basic English Grammar - TOO MUCH, TOO MANY, A LOT OF

Peekaboo. How are you? My name is Ronnie. I'm going to teach you some English. Imagine

that I would teach you English on EngVid, www.engvid.com. Today's lesson is good versus

bad with nouns.

I hear this mistake a lot, almost every day. So I want to help you. I want you to sound

as natural as possible when you speak English.

So maybe you have already learned that we have uncountable and countable nouns. Now,

what this means -- if you haven't learned this before -- is that if a noun is uncountable,

we do not put an S at the end of the noun. So things that are really teeny tiny small

like rice or sugar or salt are uncountable. Things that are liquid -- for example beer

or water -- are uncountable. So all liquids and tiny things are uncountable. Also, gases

are uncountable. That wasn't me.

So I could go on with a massive list of uncountable nouns, but you can do that yourself. Then,

we have countable. Countable, obviously, you can stick an S on the end of the noun. So

most things are countable. For example, dogs, hamburgers, cats, markers, eyes, hair -- hair

is uncountable because there are so many tiny little hairs on one heads.

So this is the rule that you have learned. If your noun is uncountable, you have to say

"too much". So maybe you have come up with a sentence that says, "I have too much sugar."

Good. Okay. So you know that sugar is uncountable, and you have used a very good English sentence.

You used, "I have too much sugar." Good.

And then, your teacher says, "Okay. Make a countable noun sentence." Okay. "I have too

many pens." I have a lot of pens. "I have too many pens." Very, very good grammatical

sentences. But there's a problem. Bad nouns. Bad, bad, bad nouns. Bad nouns, what I mean

is when we use "too much" or "too many", your noun has to be something that you do not like

okay? For example, maybe you go to school and your teacher gives you homework. Do you

think homework is a bad noun or a good noun? What's your opinion of homework? I hate homework.

I hate it. It's boring. I hate it. I hate it. So in my opinion, homework is a bad noun.

So I'm going to say, "I have too much homework." Because homework is a negative or a bad thing,

I can say, "Oh, God. I have too much homework tonight." Okay? "Too much" and "too many"

are always going to be for negative or bad things that you don't like.

So "too many" -- maybe you go to the movie, and it's really, really crowded. You can say,

"There are too many people." Now, maybe you like people. Maybe you don't like people.

But in this situation, having a lot of people is bad. So once again, it is your opinion.

"Too much" and "too many" are always for things that you do not like personally or you think

are bad at the moment. For example, "There are too many calories in seven cookies." I

like cookies. Who doesn't like cookies? I love cookies. But calories, they're bad. So

I can say, "There are too many calories." Okay? "There is too much rain in the rainy

season or in spring. There's too much rain. I don't want any more rain." Okay?

Now, in the reverse, we have the beautiful, lovely, happy good things. The beautiful,

lovely, good things are my good nouns. Good nouns, as you might have guessed, are things

that you like. For example, beer. You will never, ever, ever, open your fridge and go,

"Oh, no. I've got too many beers. I've got too much beer." This will never happen. You

will never go to the bank machine and go, "Look at that. I've got too much money." Never

happens. So when it's a positive thing, what you're going to say is "a lot of". For example,

"I have a lot of friends." Friends are usually good things. Or if you're lucky, you might

say, "I have a lot of money." If you have a lot of money, Ronnie would like some money.

Donate money. Money, money, money. Okay? "I have a lot of money." "I have a lot of beer."

Yes. "I have a lot of friends."

The cool thing about "a lot of" is that it can be used for both countable and uncountable.

It's very, very natural in English that we say "a lot of" as opposed to "too much" or

"many". All the time.

So what I want you to do is I want you to get a lot of happiness in your life. I don't

want you to have too much homework. I don't want you to have too many bad people in your

life. And I want you to enjoy learning English. Until then, goodbye.