"दिल्ली में बहुत लोग हैं।"
Translation:There are a lot of people in Delhi.
15 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1081
"a lot" is a bit slangy. I was taught to avoid it in written English. A translation much closer to the Hindi should be allowed: many = बहुत so "In Delhi there are many people." would seem the best translation.
1253
In English, "a lot of X" takes the plurality/countability of the subsequent noun (X). People is plural and countable, thus the verb takes the plural form as "There ARE a lot of people in Delhi." (not IS )
Some examples of the singular vs plural would be if you were describing something large, like an elephant "There IS a lot of elephant." vs describing that there are many elephants ... "There ARE a lot of elephants"
Another example is you could have a noun that isn't typically counted like "milk" where it describes quantity and not number. E.g. "There IS a lot of milk"
TLDR; "there is a lot of people in Delhi" is not standard English grammar.
1081
"In Delhi are many people" is good English and very close to the Hindi words. But was marked incorrect.
'There are many people in Delhi' is good English. 'In Delhi, there are many people' is also good English. But 'in Delhi are many people' is not. I'm not entirely sure why, but I believe the subject or a word referring to it (like 'there') should come at the beginning of the sentence.
1081
Here's something helpful I found on the internet: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/function/subjpp.htm
So I take back my claim that "In Delhi are many people." Is good English. But apparently a similar construction is good Hindi. Maybe that's a good sign concerning my learning progress!