bon nombre de

[alan gould]

it means "many."  i just saw it for the first time.  is it common?  Tx

[Chantal Savignat]

it's a little formal.

it can be heard at tv news, it's read in books. A teacher can (may ?)  say that in a lesson.

but you won't heard that in a supermarket to buy potatoes.

[alan gould]

t's the opposite in english.  a journalist would not write it, but people will say "a good number of people" to say there weren't a lot of people, but a quite a large number.