Learn Hardcore Japanese: kono mati ha kouen ga ooi desu.

この町は: は marks the topic – what we’re talking about.
→ この町は = “As for this town…”
公園が: が marks the subject of the adjective 多い (“many”).
→ 公園が多い = “parks are many” / “there are many parks”

Put together:

この町は (as for this town), 公園が多い (parks are many).
Natural English: “This town has many parks” or “There are many parks in this town.”

This X は Y が多い pattern is very common:

日本は山が多いです。 – Japan has many mountains.
この地域は雨が少ないです。 – This region has little rain.

Why isn’t there a verb like “have” or “there are”? How can the sentence end with an adjective 多い?

Japanese often uses adjectives where English would use “to be” or “to have”:

多い is an i-adjective meaning “many / numerous”.
In 公園が多い, the adjective itself functions like a verb:
literally “parks are many”.

So この町は公園が多いです is structurally:

“As for this town, parks are many (polite).”

There is no separate verb like “have” or “exist”; the adjective 多い plays that role.

A very similar way to say it (with an explicit verb) is:

この町には公園がたくさんあります。
“In this town, there are many parks.”

Both are natural; the original just uses an adjective instead of a verb phrase.

What exactly does 多い mean, and how is it different from たくさん?

多い (おおい) is an adjective: “many, numerous, a lot (of)”.
It can directly describe a noun or be used predicatively:
- 多い人 – many people (less common in everyday speech)
- 人が多い – there are many people
- 公園が多い – there are many parks
たくさん is usually an adverb/noun-like word:
- たくさんあります – there are many
- 公園がたくさんあります – there are many parks
- たくさんの公園 – many parks (using の to connect)

In this exact pattern X は Y が多い, you must use the adjective 多い, not たくさん:

✅ この町は公園が多いです。
❌ この町は公園がたくさんです。 (unnatural)

If you want to use たくさん, you change the structure:

この町には公園がたくさんあります。 – There are many parks in this town.

Why do we say 多いです and not just 多い at the end?

多い is the plain (dictionary) form. Adding です makes it polite:

Plain: この町は公園が多い。
Polite: この町は公園が多いです。

For i-adjectives (like 多い, 高い, 寒い), the polite form is made by adding です at the end of the sentence. You do not change the adjective stem itself.

寒い。 → 寒いです。 (It’s cold.)
高い。 → 高いです。 (It’s expensive / high.)
多い。 → 多いです。 (There are many.)

So です here is a politeness marker, not a separate lexical verb like English “is”.

Is 公園 singular or plural here? Does it mean “park” or “parks”?

Japanese usually does not mark singular vs plural on nouns, so 公園 by itself can mean either “park” or “parks”.

You understand from context and from other words:

With 多い (many), it’s naturally understood as plural:
- 公園が多い → “there are many parks”.

If you really need to emphasize plural, you could say:

たくさんの公園 – many parks
いくつもの公園 – several parks

But in normal conversation, 公園が多いです is simply understood as “there are many parks.”

Why is 公園 marked with が and not を?

を marks the direct object of an action verb (eat, see, do, etc.).
In this sentence we don’t have an action; we have a description with an adjective:

公園が多い
→ 公園 is the subject of the adjective 多い (“many”).
→ Literally: “Parks are many.”

Since 公園 is not being acted upon, を would be ungrammatical here:

✅ 公園が多いです。
❌ 公園を多いです。

Use が to mark the thing that has the quality described by the adjective.

Can I say この町には公園が多いです? What’s the difference if I add に or には?

Yes, you can say:

この町には公園が多いです。

Here’s the nuance:

この町は公園が多いです。
Topic: “As for this town, parks are many.”
Smooth, very natural.
この町に公園が多いです。
Grammatically possible, but feels a bit off / less natural on its own.
この町には公園が多いです。
には = に (location) + は (topic/emphasis).
Focuses a bit more on “IN this town (as opposed to elsewhere), there are many parks.”
Slight contrastive feel: In this town in particular, there are many parks.

In everyday use, この町は公園が多いです and この町には公園が多いです are both fine, with には sounding slightly more “in this specific town (at this location)”.

Could I say この町は公園は多いです instead?

No; that’s unnatural.

You generally don’t put は twice in this pattern:

X は Y が多い is the normal structure.
X は Y は多い is wrong here.

Why?

この町は: topic
公園が多い: “parks are many” (subject + adjective)

If you change 公園が to 公園は, you’d be marking 公園 as a second topic, which clashes with the structure and breaks the normal “X has many Y” pattern.

So:

✅ この町は公園が多いです。
❌ この町は公園は多いです。

Where does 多い go in the sentence? Why does it come after 公園が and before です?

The basic order in Japanese is:

[Topic] は [Subject] が [Adjective] です。

So we get:

この町は (topic: this town)
公園が (subject: parks)
多い (adjective: are many)
です (polite ending)

→ この町は公園が多いです。

You cannot move 多い somewhere else:

❌ この町は多い公園がです。 (incorrect)
❌ この町は多いです公園が。 (incorrect)

In Japanese, the adjective that describes the subject comes right before です when it ends the sentence.

Can I say this with ここ instead of この町?

Yes, if the context is clear that ここ refers to the town or area you’re in:

ここは公園が多いです。
→ Literally: “As for here, there are many parks.”
→ Natural: “There are a lot of parks around here.”

Nuance difference:

この町は公園が多いです。
Specifically talks about “this town”.
ここは公園が多いです。
Talks about “here / this place” in a more general or immediate sense (could be this neighborhood, this district, etc., depending on context).

Both are correct; choose based on what “here” refers to in your situation.

How do you read 多い, and are there any pronunciation issues?

多い is read おおい.

Points to note:

It’s two long syllables: おー・い (o-o-i), not “oi” like English “boy”.
In casual fast speech it might sound slightly shortened, but the dictionary form is clearly おおい.
It’s an i-adjective, so other forms are:
- 多く (おおく) – adverbial/nominal form
- 多かった (おおかった) – was many
- 多くない (おおくない) – not many (colloquial)
  (More “textbook” negative predicate here would be 多くありません / 多くないです.)

In the target sentence, you just need to remember おおいです.

Why is there no particle after この? Why isn’t it このの町 or something like that?

この is a demonstrative adjective (determiner) meaning “this (… here)” used directly before a noun:

この町 – this town
この本 – this book
この人 – this person

It already functions kind of like an English adjective/determiner; it does not need a particle and does not take の after it.

Structure is:

この (this)
- 町 (town)
  - は (topic marker)
    → この町は

If you want to use の, the pattern usually is:

これ (this) + の
- NOUN → これのNOUN
  but in practice, for “this NOUN” you nearly always say このNOUN, not これのNOUN.

So この町は is exactly the correct form.

Can any noun go into this pattern X は Y が多い?

Very often, yes. It’s a productive pattern:

日本は山が多いです。 – Japan has many mountains.
このクラスは宿題が多いです。 – This class has a lot of homework.
都会は人が多いです。 – Big cities have a lot of people / are crowded.
この会社は外国人が多いです。 – This company has many foreigners.

General template:

[Place / group / situation] は [thing within it] が多いです。
→ “[Place/group] has many [that thing].”

So この町は公園が多いです fits that same commonly used grammar pattern.