"This boy is popular among us."
Translation:Ce garçon est populaire parmi nous.
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Maybe it is equivalent to the English which uses "between" when something is between two objects and "among" when there are three or more other objects. Just a guess. Any native speakers know?
Native speaker here, and I believe your assessment is almost correct. There is a slight difference between "entre" and "parmi", but it feels like it's more about the tone than the meaning. "Entre" feels slightly less formal than "parmi", but I'm hard pressed to come up with an example where they are not interchangeable.
Actually, I take that back.
"Entre" can mean either "among" or "between", and "parmi" means only "among". This should clear it up.
This is a part the entry for entre in my Grand Dictionnaire Hachette-Oxford
entre prép
!! Entre se traduit par between sauf lorsqu'il signifie parmi auquel cas il se traduit généralement par among. Exemples et exceptions sont présentés dans l'article ci-dessous. Les expressions telles que entre parenthèses, entre deux portes, lire entre les lignes sont traitées respectivement sous parenthèse, porte, lire; de même entre ciel et terre se trouve sous ciel, entre la vie et la mort sous vie etc.
What I infer from this text as well as the subsequent definitions of the word is that entre usually means between rather than among.
Funny that there is another question on here that uses the phrase "among us" and d'entre nous is accepted.
