"Az amerikai áruházaknál sok fontos ember sétál."
Translation:Many important people are walking at the American department stores.
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As an American that visits department stores, this sentence makes me feel warm and fuzzy.
I wrote "áruházoknál" instead of "áruházaknál", and the only error is that I used the wrong vowel harmony. Duolingo really should give a pass on this. If it's acceptable to mix up "sz" and "s", and sometimes completely mess up the spelling of words; mixing up ak/ok should be acceptable.
Getting the right vowel harmony is something I can perfect after I'm fluent in the language.
There is something not very clear for me : "nál" is sometimes translated "by" which implies "next to"* and then what's the difference with "mellett"? And sometimes "at"which in those sentences ( I work at) seems to imply that you are inside...
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Okay, let's go over the differences:
Mellett is a postposition which is usually translated as "beside" or "next to". The "side" part in "beside" is the important thing here: you are at the side of the object, not in front nor behind, above or below. If you say "A színház mellett lakom", you're saying that the theatre is your neighbouring building.
-nál/-nél is a suffix and is usually translated as "at" or "by". -nál doesn't care exactly where you are, just that you are in the immediate surrounding of the object. If you say "A színháznál lakom", I know you're living close to the theatre, probably in the same street. The suffix can also be used in that less literal meaning of "working at" a place (like in English, hey!), but other than that it's used mostly in the spatial sense.
Strictly speaking, "working at" some company doesn't necessarily mean that you work inside of the building. You can work "at the bank" (a banknál), but your workplace might not be "in the bank" (a bankban), maybe because you work in customer service, where you can stay at home and receive calls there.
Thank you your explanations are very clear... but doesn't explain why sometimes you are at the school or by the school,at least without a context.
"Lots of important people are walking by the American department stores." How can you walk at multiple department stores? You could walk in them (which would be "ben" anyway).
When does one use many and when does one use "a lot"? Usage seems inconsistent.
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You usually use "many" with countable nouns and can use "a lot" with either countable or uncountable nouns. The exact rules are weird and complicated, and I'd just suggest to report the missing expressions here. The course is still young and misses a lot of (many) possible answers.
Am I correct in thinking that 'ember' is not in the plural because 'sok' counts as a number?