Breakdown of Многие уже ушли домой.
домой
home
уже
already
уйти
to leave (on foot, pf) / to retreat into solitude
многие
many (people), many of them
Questions & Answers about Многие уже ушли домой.
Why is the verb plural (ушли) instead of neuter singular, since this lesson is about quantifiers?
The word многие is an adjective meaning "many" or "many people", and it acts as a normal plural subject here. Because the subject is a standard plural, the verb must be plural (ушли). The neuter singular rule you are learning applies to adverbial quantifiers like много (a lot) or collective nouns like большинство (majority). If the sentence used много, the verb would be neuter singular: Много людей уже ушло домой.
Could I just use Много here as the subject instead of Многие?
You could, but you would usually need to add a noun in the genitive case, like Много людей уже ушло домой (A lot of people have already gone home). Многие stands on its own perfectly well to mean "many people" without needing an extra noun.
Why use the verb ушли instead of пошли for "have gone"?
The perfective prefix у- specifically means "away" or "leaving a place." Ушли домой emphasizes that these people have left the speaker's current location and are no longer there. If you used пошли домой, it would mean they "set off" or "started walking" home, but ушли focuses heavily on their absence from the current location.
Why does the sentence use домой instead of дома?