何~も, たくさん

Ariander

Member
uu
I often have trouble deciding where to put words such as たくさん and 何人も... I am afraid that it may be misunderstood depending on where I place the word. How can I make it clear to what I am referring when using these kind of words? For example:

学生は教科書をたくさん買わなくちゃ
I would use the above sentence if I wanted to refer to the books... but if I wanted to refer to the students (as in "Many students must buy textbooks" rather than "Students have to buy many textbooks") is the only real option to say:
たくさんの学生は教科書を買わなくちゃ

How about if I wanted to use 何人も?
Like:
何人も小学生は現代携帯電話を持ってる
or is it better to place the 何人も elsewhere or use a whole other word altogether?

Thank you! :)

(By all means, any other mistakes in my examples are fair game ^^; Thanks again)
 
  • I'm not native but I would say:
    多くの学生は教科書を買わなければならない

    And:

    現代 小学生は何人も携帯電話を持ってる
    But '何人も' sounds strange to me in this sentence, I can't explain why though...
     
    現代 小学生は何人も携帯電話を持ってる sounds odd. It should be:
    最近は、多くの小学生が携帯電話を持っている。
     
    A grammatical sentence using 何人も is:
    現在、何人もの小学生が携帯電話を持っている。

    I repeat. This is a grammatical sentence.

    Yet it sounds odd. The reason is that 何人 refers to an unspecified number below 10. The speaker can say 何人も if 8 people are too many in a given sentence:
    この場所で何人もの人が死んだ。

    A possible rewrite of the first sentence is to estimate the order of the number of pupils in primary education who have mobile phones. I don't know the exact figures but if I assume it is more than one million:
    現在、何百万人もの小学生が携帯電話を持っている。
     
    Back
    Top