Hello,
I have been having trouble understanding the difference between まで and も when they are used as “as much as”. Below is an example review that I got wrong for using まで instead of も.
Would someone be able to explain why まで also isn’t correct here?
まで is used to mean “Up till”, “until”, or “by” whereas も is emphasis.
So looking at your example sentence you use, I can see why using まで might be considered, but it doesn’t have any emotional weight behind it. It’s more of a matter of fact. Where as も is emphasizing the difference between now and when the author was a college student.
Like “I used to drink as much as five energy drinks a day,” is more impactful and draws a response out of someone. While “I would drink up to 5 energy drinks a day,” is still a concerning amount, it wouldn’t be trying to draw attention to the number.
The only way that まで would be close to も in meaning is if they were used together to create the grammar point までも which means “to the extent of” but either way, も is necessary in this sentence.
Thank you, that helps a lot!
No problem!! Glad it helped!! We’re all in this together!!
I think the tricky thing is that sometimes the も in までも is omitted… (Here’s the Bunpro entry for it: まで - Japanese Grammar Explained | Bunpro).
In which case, I think their answer only doesn’t make sense if we can be sure that までも cannot be used in this context (otherwise, how can you be sure they weren’t thinking までも with the も omitted?). Personally, I don’t think we can definitively make this statement… in other words, I don’t see an issue with using までも, but omitting the も to soften the emphasis a bit in this sentence, but do let me know if I’m wrong about that. If I’m not wrong about that, then it’s not true that も must show up in this sentence.
Either way, to your point, I think it’s good to keep separate in your head the meaning of まで vs. when it is an abbreviation/softening of までも.
As for my answer for how not to get this mixed up, it’s simply that if you are emphasizing after counters, も is what is typically used. You’ll notice that none of the example sentences for まで（も）come after counters, whereas all the example sentences for this meaning of も come after counters. Number + も - Japanese Grammar Explained | Bunpro
Nothing more to it than that as far as I can tell. So it’s not that your meaning wouldn’t come across correctly, just that it might not be the customary way to say it. This sort of thing will happen more and more the more advanced you get.
