Learn French: Il y a toujours beaucoup de gens dans la gare. - There are always a lot of people in the train station.

Il y a toujours beaucoup de gens dans la gare.

There are always a lot of people in the train station.

Breakdown of Il y a toujours beaucoup de gens dans la gare.

Questions & Answers about Il y a toujours beaucoup de gens dans la gare.

Why is it Il y a if the English translation is plural ("There are")?

The expression il y a is fixed and works for both singular and plural! Even though it literally translates as "it there has", it means both "there is" and "there are" in French. You don't need to make it plural when talking about multiple people.

Why does toujours (always) go right after Il y a?

In French, short adverbs like toujours are typically placed right after the conjugated verb. In the expression il y a, the verb is a (a form of to have). So, toujours steps in directly after it!

Since gens (people) is plural, why isn't it beaucoup des gens?

Beaucoup de (a lot of) is a fixed expression of quantity. The word de always stays as de (or d' before a vowel) in these quantity expressions, even when the noun that comes next is plural.

Could I use personnes instead of gens to mean "people" here?

You could, but gens is much more natural here. In French, gens is used for an undefined group or "people in general" (like a busy crowd in a station). Personnes is usually used when you are talking about a specific, countable number of individuals (like trois personnes).