Placement of "mucho"

[barefootjon]

Hey all,

Hoping someone can confirm my thoughts on this. I get confused on where to place "mucho" at times. Take these two sentences:

Me gusta jugar mucho fútbol.
Me gusta mucho jugar fútbol.

My thoughts are that this one:

Me gusta jugar mucho fútbol means "I like to play a lot of soccer". So basically, it's saying I like to play a bunch of soccer, but not necessarily saying that I like soccer, but just I like playing it a lot because it's good exercise or something.

And

Me gusta mucho jugar fútbol means "I really like playing soccer". And this means I really like playing soccer, but not necessarily playing it every day because maybe it makes me sore or something.

Semantics I know, but just curious if the placement of "mucho" can change the entire meaning. Because in both English translations, it probably wouldn't make a difference and it would still be confusing what is really meant exactly. I could say "I really like playing soccer", but I could mean I either like soccer or I just like playing it.

And then you could also add mucho at the end like:

Me gusta jugar fútbol mucho

So just curious the importance of placement or which way is most common.

Thanks,
Jon

[Cifi]

Yes, I understand it the way you describe it, the adverb mucho relates to the verb that it follows directly.

And I'm sure that I really like playing soccer / Me gusta mucho jugar al fútbol is ways more common in either language, simply because I like playing a lot of soccer (meaning playing only a little soccer is something I dislike) may not be something you want to express that frequently.

Here's one that made me hesitate: Te he echado mucho de menos. Apparently, mucho comes directly after the verb here, too.

[Julian_L.]

Take these two sentences:

Me gusta jugar mucho fútbol.
Me gusta mucho jugar fútbol.

Your thoughts about those two sentences are right.

Semantics I know, but just curious if the placement of "mucho" can change the entire meaning. Because in both English translations, it probably wouldn't make a difference and it would still be confusing what is really meant exactly. I could say "I really like playing soccer", but I could mean I either like soccer or I just like playing it.

I don't know if I understand your doubt, but if you mean if the meanings of the previous sentences you mentioned can be switched, I don't think so: they have the respective meanings you have mentioned ("I like playing a lot of soccer/football" vs. "I really like playing soccer/football"), although the second sentence («Me gusta mucho jugar [al] fútbol») if the default one, and what you will surely hear or read more.

And then you could also add mucho at the end like:

Me gusta jugar fútbol mucho

That order does not sound correct to me.

[barefootjon]

Thanks for the responses.

Cifi, yeah, placing it at the correct location to get the right meaning is still confusing at times. I'm hoping I get the hang of it.

Julian_L., yep, I wanted to confirm that the placement is important. The English translation can sometimes be ambiguous. But in Spanish, it really does have a specific meaning depending on the placement.

I appreciate the input!

Jon

[gmads]

I get confused on where to place "mucho" at times.

** Short answer **

The location of the word "mucho" depends on what is going to be qualified.

** Long answer **

According to the word or phrase being modified, "mucho" can work either as:

1. an adjective of quantity to qualify a noun, in which case it goes before it
2. an adverb of quantity to qualify a verb, an adjective or an adverb, in which case it goes after it

Remember that adjectives have to agree in gender (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural) with the noun:

• los niños comieron mucho pastel en la fiesta
• los niños comieron mucha gelatina en la fiesta
• los niños comieron muchos dulces en la fiesta
• los niños comieron muchas galletas en la fiesta

Remember that adverbs are immutable, that is, they never change their form.

• noté que bailaste mucho en la fiesta de ayer
• hoy trabajaré mucho porque falté dos días
• los niños juegan mucho todos los días
• las atletas han practicado mucho este último mes

---

*** Affective verbs ***

So far, so good. Now let's see what happens when we work with affective verbs, or those used to describe emotions, ideas, interests or preferences. A few of these verbs are: divertir, encantar, faltar, gustar, interesar, molestar, parecer.

What is so especial about them?

1. they are always used with the unstressed indirect object pronouns { me, te, le, nos, les/os, les }: me divierte, te encanta, le falta, nos gusta, les/os interesa, les molesta

2. they may be used with the stressed indirect object pronouns preceeded by the preposition "a:" { a mí, a ti, a él/ella, a nosotros, a ustedes/vosotros, a ellos/ellas } to emphasize the person being affected or when there might be a possible confusion about the person involved: a mí me divierte, a ustedes/ellos/ellas les interesa

3. their number (singular or plural) always agrees with the thing being interested, liked, loved, etc, that is, with the grammatical subject, not with the person or the active agent (the one who is interested, who likes, loves, etc):

   • [a mí] (singular person) me divierten los payasos (plural subject)
     and not: a mí me divierte los payasos

   • [a ti] (singular person) te encantan las fresas (plural subject)
     and not: a ti te encanta las fresas

   • [a nosotros] (plural person) nos gusta el queso (singular subject)
     and not: a nosotros nos gustan el queso

   • [a ellas] (plural person) les molesta el ruido (singular subject)
     and not: a ellas les molestan el ruido

4. with these verbs, what appears to be the direct object is actually the subject of the sentence:

   • in "me divierten los payasos," the phrase "los payasos" seems to be the direct object because it comes after the verb (as in "como las galletas"), but it is not, it is actually the subject of the sentence:
     -- los payasos me divierten

5. with these verbs, what appears to be the subject is actually the indirect object of the sentence:

   • in "me divierten los payasos," the pronoun "me" seems to be the subject because it comes before the verb (as in "yo como las galletas"), but it is not, it is actually the indirect object of the sentence:
     -- los payasos divierten a mí (this is not grammatically correct, but it is similar to saying: "los payasos divierten a los niños")

The last two points may be easily understood if we translate the sentence into English in a literal way:

• clowns =subject
• are entertaining =verb
• to me =indirect object

Now, why did I explain all this about affective verbs? Because when adding the word "mucho" to a sentence with an affective verb, its grammatical role may not be quite evident if the subject was placed after the verb because "mucho" then would come after the verb (like adverbs do) and before the noun (like adjectives do). In the following sentence, what is "mucho," an adverb or an adjective?

• me divierten mucho los payasos

As now we know that "los payasos" is the subject of the sentence, and not the direct object, we immediately know that "mucho" is actually qualifying the verb, therefore, it is an adverb. This of course may be easily seen if we rephrase the sentence as so:

• los payasos me divierten mucho

Also, knowing that "mucho" is acting as an adverb in this kind of sentences let's us avoid the common mistake of making it agree with the suppossedly direct object:

• me divierten muchos los payasos (vs. "vi muchos payasos")
• le gustan muchas las flores (vs. "quiere muchas flores")
• te desagrada mucha la leche (vs. "toma mucha leche")

---

*** affective verbs followed by another verb ***

When the subject of an affective verb is not a noun but a verb:

1. the affective verb is always in singular:
   • nos gusta comer
2. the following verb is always in infinitive, and it may be used:
   • transitively: nos gusta comer pizza
   • intransitively: nos gusta comer

Remember that verbs used in a transitive way are followed by a direct object ("pizza", in the example above), and verbs used in an intransitive way are not.

Now it should be easy to understand the role of the word "mucho" in these last examples:

1. me gusta mucho comer
2. me gusta comer mucho
3. me gusta mucho comer pastel
4. me gusta comer mucho pastel

Can you tell?

Can you derive a very simple rule to know what role is playing?

---

And then you could also add mucho at the end like:

Me gusta jugar fútbol mucho

But then you need to preceed it with a comma: "Me gusta jugar fútbol, mucho."

[wayfarer]

Wouldn't you say Me gusta jugar mucho al futbol for the second sense? Although that can still be taken to mean 'I like playing football a lot'.

What about Me gusta jugar a mucho de fútbol?

An alternative is to say Me gusta jugar (a) un montón de fútbol if you want to be clearer

(I'm a bit unsure about the use of the 'a')

[wayfarer]

To expand upon this. I asked a friend of mine (native Spanish speaker, born in Madrid) and she said that she would not use either of the two sentences from the OP by [mention]barefootjon[/mention] :

Me gusta jugar mucho fútbol
Me gusta mucho jugar fútbol

to mean "I like playing lots of football" .

Firstly, she would always use an "a" after jugar, as I mentioned above, so the sentence would have "jugar al fútbol" within it somehow.

And secondly she says that you can't reliably translate either of those two sentences to mean "I like playing lots of football". Just changing the word order, as suggested in the OP, does not change the meaning reliably in Spanish as it does in English, where word order is often crucial. This is backed up by the fact that three or four online translators I tried all returned the translation "I really like playing football" or similar for both sentences

DeepL translates both sentences the same way. Google Translate and Spanish Dict do the same

futbol.PNG (41.33 KiB) Viewed 1732 times

She said that if she wanted to say "I like playing lots of football" she would say

Me gusta jugar al fútbol todo al rato

or

Me gusta jugar al fútbol cuando puedo

to gain the nuance of "play football whenever I get the chance".

She reminded me that sometimes sentences are not directly translatable between languages by merely translating individual componant words and following or altering word order.

Not sure if the OP will see this but hope it helps someone.

[gmads]

Regarding the "she would always use an 'a' after jugar," in Spain (European Spanish) it is common to add the preposition "a" before certain verbs, but not in America, therefore, adding it is not mandatory, that is, the sentences in question are perfectly fine without the "a".

Regarding the "you can't reliably translate either of those two sentences to mean 'I like playing lots of football'," one can in fact, reliably and without any ambiguity, translate one of them to mean "I like to play lots of football," and the other to mean "I like a lot to play football." One just needs to grasp the grammatical role that words are playing in each sentence.

Me gusta jugar mucho fútbol: I like to play lots of football. The word "mucho" is working as an adjective of quantity, as it specifies the quantity of football the person likes to play: lots (mucho). One can easily confirm this by removing "mucho" or by changing the whole clause: me gusta jugar fútbol (I like to play football), me gusta jugar ajedrez (I like to play chess), me gusta comer mucho arroz (I like to eat a lot of rice).
Me gusta mucho jugar fútbol: I like a lot to play football. The word "mucho" is working as an adverb of quantity, as it specifies how much the person likes to play football: a lot (mucho). One can easily confirm this by rewriting the sentence: "jugar fútbol, me gusta mucho."

For anyone having doubts about all this, please take the time to carefully read this post, as everything is explained there, clearly, with examples, and step by step.

Regarding the "Just changing the word order does not change the meaning reliably in Spanish," that may be the case in some cases, but not in others. It does not apply to the one in question.

Regarding "online translators," it is (or should be) a well known that they are not reliable in their translations. Anyway, here is what Google Translate had to say about my translations:

AA7D82BA-B687-46F2-A86C-26F7A37351ED.png (50.17 KiB) Viewed 1593 times

This is not such a complex sentence so as to not be directly translatable, therefore, there is no need to change the intended adjective/adverb. The suggested sentence, "playing football whenever I get the chance" is quite different and totally unrelated to: "I like to play lots of football" and to "I like a lot to play football."

[duome]

This is one of my favorites, by the way:

insp0199-01.png (17.01 KiB) Viewed 1677 times

Be kinder than necessary because everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.

So shall we give ourselves a second chance and find a better way to sort it out and move on from this?

[Deleted User 133]

This is one of my favorites, by the way:

Will you look at that! I came across this quote only yesterday in Arabic and I instantly liked and bookmarked it on my Instagram.

[panyamnyenyekevu]

I deleted some posts I thought were too persomal on this thread. If any of the posters whose posts I deleted wish to take issue with this, they can contact me about it. [Thread’s been temporarily locked.]