barefootjon wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:21 am
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:
- an adjective of quantity to qualify a noun, in which case it goes before it
- 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?
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
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
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
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
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:
- the affective verb is always in singular:
- 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:
- me gusta mucho comer
- me gusta comer mucho
- me gusta mucho comer pastel
- me gusta comer mucho pastel
Can you tell?
Can you derive a very simple rule to know what role is playing?
barefootjon wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 1:21 am
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."