How much how many rule

As we have already seen, this is something that gets mixed up by native speakers a lot but it is frowned upon in formal settings. To see this error in an academic paper or hear it during an important meeting could cause difficulties for the person making that mistake. The best way to do this is simply repetitive practice. Repetition helps to cement these rules into your brain and decreases the errors that you make in your English speech, writing and comprehension.

Fill-in-the gap exercises are very useful. Then, one by one, go through and insert the correct version according to the noun in the sentence. Remember, all you need to know is whether the noun is countable or uncountable. When we want to know the quantity or amount of something, we ask questions starting with How much and How many.

In this case, we can use How much with countable nouns both singular and plural nouns. A: I would like to buy some cheese. B: How much cheese would you like? The noun cheese is not necessary after how much since we already know we are talking about cheese. In fact, it is normally omitted to avoid sounding repetitive.

To help you remember, there are a few tricks. You might think of the phrase:. You can also link the u in m u ch to the u in u ncountable. Interested in learning more about nouns? You might try figuring out proper and common nouns. There are even fun worksheets to help you master this skill. All rights reserved. Rules to Know. Question: Do you know how many dogs there are? Positive Formal: Many dogs were at the park. Positive Informal: There were a lot of dogs at the park.

For example: That was too much food. Did you need that much milk?