vielen

Vielen is the dative plural form of viel, a German quantifier meaning “much” or “many.” Viel serves as a determiner or pronoun and changes its form according to case and number. In plural contexts, the base forms are usually deployed as viele for nominative or accusative use (viele Leute, viele Bücher) and vielen for the dative plural (mit vielen Freunden). The genitive plural appears as vieler or vieler Bücher in phrases like “die Menge vieler Bücher.”

In everyday German, viel is used with uncountable nouns (viel Geld, viel Zeit), while viele is used with countable nouns (viele Leute, viele Bücher). The dative plural form vielen is common after prepositions or in indirect-object positions (mit vielen Freunden; ich helfe vielen Menschen). The phrase Vielen Dank is a widely used fixed expression meaning “thank you very much,” where vielen functions as the dative plural form in a set polite formula.

Etymology traces viel to Old High German viel and further back to Proto-Germanic roots; it has cognates in other West Germanic languages, such as Dutch veel and Danish meget. The word forms and their inflection enable speakers to express quantity across different grammatical cases and noun classes, while remaining flexible in idiomatic expressions like Vielen Dank.