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Liveinjapan

#491869 Sat, 22 Mar 08 04:42 PM

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>

Liveinjapan

Joined on Sun, Feb 4 2007

Osaka, Japan

Senior Member (1,360)

Please feel free to correct any words I wrote.LiJ

Marius Hancu

#491876 Sat, 22 Mar 08 05:17 PM

No, use:

Re: Few/ a few

or:

Italy is as meager in natural resources as Japan.

Also, BTW:

Italy has as many natural resources as Japan [has].

Marius Hancu

Joined on Wed, Apr 26 2006

Montreal, Canada

Forum Guru (11,252)

Liveinjapan

#491881 Sat, 22 Mar 08 05:45 PM

Thanks, Marius.

Italy has as few natural resources as Japan [has]. OK

Italy has as a few natural resources as Japan [has]. Not okay

Italy outputs as few natural resources as Japan [does]. OK

Right?

Liveinjapan

Marius Hancu

#491892 Sat, 22 Mar 08 06:10 PM

Yes, but:

Italy has a few [meaning several, some] natural resources, just as Japan.

Marius Hancu

RayH

#491901 Sat, 22 Mar 08 06:29 PM

Try these:

Italy and Japan are equally poor in natural resources.

Italy is poor in natural resources as is Japan.

RayH

Joined on Sat, Mar 22 2008

CA, USA

Frequent Poster (432)

Native speaker of U. S. English. Not a grammar expert.

Kooyeen

#491903 Sat, 22 Mar 08 06:31 PM

I don't agree. I think "as many as" is used for neutral comparisons, even if there are "few" things. More or less like when you ask "How many...?". If you already know that there are "few" things, do you ask "How few...?" instead? I don't think so. Just my opinion, anyway. Smile

Kooyeen

Joined on Thu, Dec 22 2005

Italy

Pre Guru (3,652)

*Parental Advisory* Explicit Posts

Marius Hancu

#491905 Sat, 22 Mar 08 06:46 PM

http://www.english4today.com/englishgrammar/grammar/ADJECTIVES11b.cfm

Marius Hancu

Grammar

Cool Breeze

#491931 Sat, 22 Mar 08 08:09 PM

Kooyeen
I don't agree. I think "as many as" is used for neutral comparisons, even if there are "few" things. More or less like when you ask "How many...?". If you already know that there are "few" things, do you ask "How few...?" instead? I don't think so. Just my opinion, anyway.

Hi Kooyeen

I agree with the natives. This is a borderline case. Resources is a plural but it is the amount rather than number of these resources that comes to mind first. Therefore there are restrictions on expressions that are normally used with plural nouns. Some of them sound unidiomatic.

Cheers