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Il y a tant de choses à faire.

Il y a tant de choses à faire.
There are so many things to do.
From Lesson 122:Comparing quantities of nouns (plus de... que)·French

Questions & Answers about Il y a tant de choses à faire.

The lesson teaches autant de (as many). Why does this sentence use tant de?
Autant de is used when you are comparing things, meaning "as many" or "as much". Tant de is used to emphasize a large quantity without comparing it to anything else, meaning "so many" or "so much".
Why is it tant de choses and not tant des choses since the word for things is plural?
After expressions of quantity like tant de, plus de, moins de, or autant de, the word de never changes to des. It stays as a simple de (or d' before a vowel) even when the following noun is plural.
I learned that si means "so". Could I say si de choses to mean "so many things"?
No, si is only used to mean "so" before adjectives and adverbs (like si grand meaning "so big"). When you want to express "so much" or "so many" before a noun, you must use the quantity phrase tant de.
Why do we use à before the verb faire here?
In French, when an infinitive verb describes the purpose of a noun or what needs to be done with it, you connect them with à. The structure is exactly like saying "things to be done" in English. Another common example is un livre à lire (a book to read).

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