Many

Liveinjapan

Italy has as many natural resources as Japan does.

Let's say Italy and Japan are poor in natural resources.

Can I use many in this case?
What I want to say here is both have about the same small amount of natural resources.

Thanks
LiJ

_LSUCS>

 

 

Your original sentence is fine. "Many" is used in this way.

 

You could put the concept in several ways:

 Both Japan and Italy are poor in natural resources.

Japan and Italy both have meagre natural resource.

Both Italy and Japan have few natural resources.

 Japan has a few natural resources; so too does Italy. 

Italy has as many natural resources as Japan.

Japan has as many natural resources as Italy. 

Liveinjapan

Kooyeen

If you already know that there are "few" things

I know what you mean, Kooyeen.

Hi,
what I was saying was that "many" is ok even if you are referring to "few" things, as Feebs said. I am not 100% sure, but here's what I would do:

Mark has few books. I have as few books as Mark. <--- No, not usually. I might use it humorously, but I think it's usually "I have as many books as Mark", even if there's not many.
Read as few books as you can. You might learn too much. <--- Here it's ok though.

Disclaimer: Of course I might be wrong.