Cómo expresar "there are more/fewer [plural noun] than [plural noun]"

Question

¿Cómo puedo expresar en español frases del estilo "there are more/fewer [plural noun] than [plural noun]"? Por ejemplo, "there are more cars than buses." Iba a decir "hay más coches que autobuses," pero me suena raro.

Answer 1

Just as in English, where "more" is the comparative form of both uncountable "much" and countable "many", in Spanish "más" is the comparative form of uncountable "mucho/mucha" as well as of countable "muchos/muchas". Therefore:

• Hay más coches que autobuses. (There are more cars than buses.)

is correct, and so is:

• Hay más transporte privado que público. (There is more private than public transportation.)

The same applies to "menos", which is the comparative form of uncountable "poco/poca" as well as of countable "pocos/pocas". Note that, in English, we have "less" for uncountable nouns and "fewer" for countable ones:

• Hay menos coches que autobuses. (There are fewer cars than buses.)

• Hay menos transporte privado que público. (There is less private than public transportation.)