de nombreuses

Question

Could you say...  "J'habite à de nombreuses rues d'ici" ?  I live many streets from here.  Do you need that "à"?

Accepted Answer

Hi,
I have been thinking about this one and it does sound odd to me.
You could say it, I suppose and be understood but I don't think a French person would use what is the equivalent of 'numerous' here, I am not convinced it sounds good in English either, but I am prepared to stand corrected...

Answer

I am not sure that works in French, but Cécile's opinion would be the final verdict on this.

Answer

It sounds odd in English too (you wouldn't say "many streets", but you could say "many miles" etc.), but I think the question is really whether it's grammatical. The combination of à de nombreuses looked strange to me, but it seems to be perfectly OK, so I suppose it could be used quite reasonably in a different context.

Answer

My problem with this lesson isn't the French but the English.

Few, several and a couple can all mean "two". A couple is definitely "two". Several and a few could mean more than two. But I would have said that "several" was less not more than a "few". I think this also depends on where you're from.

(ps instinctively, I've always understood quelque as "some", plusieur as "many", beaucoup as "a lot" and nombreuse as "numerous", but that last one is probably a false cognate.)

Answer

Hi Ash,
You could say in French -
J'ai de nombreux amis qui habitent en France 
meaning:
You have many friends who live in France 
you assume this is a significant number.
I always understood that 'a couple of' was a vague number around the 2 mark, you are not quite sure how many but very few.
The word 'few' to me means a small quantity and several a larger quantity but all very vague in number.
To go back to the original question you just wouldn't say -
à de nombreuses rues d'ici 
you would probably say -
J'habite loin d'ici  = I live far from here ( many streets away)
or 
J'habite à quelques rues d'ici = I don't live far from her ( a few streets away) 
Hope this helps!