Il y a beaucoup de règles de grammaire en français.
Il y a beaucoup d'utilisations de "de" aussi.
I haven't yet mastered the many rules for the usage of "de". I'd been actually forgetting to use it at all in some situations: during my weekly lesson last week, for example.
Before last week I'd have said or written "Il y a beaucoup règles" or "Il y a beaucoup utilisations" to indicate that there are many rules or many uses. That would be a literal and wrong translation since "beaucoup" is always accompanied by "de" when talking about many things or people.
There is an upside to this rule- it's not very complicated. There are only two forms:
beaucoup de
beaucoup d' (for words starting with vowels or vowel sounds like "h").
That's it.
A bit anti-climactic, huh? If you'd like to be more engaged with beaucoup you might want to check out the Forvo website with their many words! Their tagline reads "All the words in the world. Pronounced". This website lets you "add words, pronounce, listen & learn".
It's still the beta version and not all the words in the French world have been pronounced for our listening pleasure but you can already listen to over 1200 words. So go ahead, say it (actually record it, too) and let your French be heard: Beaucoup de mots!
Devoirs- If you'd like homework, ahem, I mean to know more about beaucoup de and other expressions of quantity and do a quick exercise check out this website: Tex's French Grammar.
La photo: Many bottles of organically produced wine from le vignoble des hautes collines de la côte d'azur (on the Chemin des Sausses) St. Jeannet, France. Juin, 2008. More Information on this website- - register so that you can get the free sample PDF of their Wine Travel Guide for the Inland Provence where more information on this winery is available: Wine Travel Guides
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