Very many

[nenadf]

Hi,
I hope that you are going to help me about one dilemma I have about use of very. Namely, in your quiz "So, too & very - Intermediate", correct answer for the question 4 “There were (too/very/Either could be used here) many people there.” is too, which means that construction very many people is not possible here. On contrary, in the question 7
“(So/very/Either could be used here) many people think the way I do.” very many is correct answer.
Could you help me to figure out where is the difference?
Thank you in advance,
Nenad

 

[Barb_D]

Hi,
I hope that you are going to help me about one dilemma I have about use of very. Namely, in your quiz "So, too & very - Intermediate", correct answer for the question 4 “There were (too/very/Either could be used here) many people there.” is too, which means that construction very many people is not possible here. On contrary, in the question 7
“(So/very/Either could be used here) many people think the way I do.” very many is correct answer.
Could you help me to figure out where is the difference?
Thank you in advance,
Nenad

Hello Nenad,
Welcome to the forums.

Thank you for giving your thread a good title and using correct capitalization and punctuation in your question.

4. There were too many people there. -- This is an odd thing to say insolation but makes perfect sense in many contexts. I didn't enjoy the party very much. There were too many people there. It was too noisy and there wasnt' enough to eat or drink for all those guests.
4. There were very many people there. -- I can't call this WRONG, but it's not very natural. Usually you see "very man" with the negative: There weren't very many people there. If you want to make "many" stronger, you could say "there were a great many people there." That's much more natural than "very many."

7. So many poeple think the way I do. -- This is very natural.
7. Very many people think the way I do. -- This is less natural. Are you sure you wrote the question correctly, if the given answer was "very many"? It wasn't "Not very many people..."?