Tengo muchos libros muy interesantes: muy versus mucho
uy and mucho, both intensifiers in Spanish - that is, words that elevate the degree of something - are a frequent source of doubts among those acquiring the language. And of errors, of course. In this article we will see the differences in their use, and the detail of the uses of each one. And, at the end, a little bit of colloquial language from my variety of the Spanish language. Let's go!
Uses of muy.
Muy is an adverb, so it is invariable. It is used to intensify adjectives, adverbs and adjectival participles. It always goes before the word it intensifies in the sentence. Let’s see examples.
Use with adjectives.
La casa es muy grande (The house is very big).
María está muy cansada (María is very tired).
Los ejercicios son muy difíciles (The exercises are very difficult).
Esta película es muy interesante (This movie is very interesting).
El café está muy caliente (The coffee is very hot).
Use with adverbs: the adverb muy is used to intensify other adverbs. As in the case of its use with adjectives, it is always placed before the adverb it intensifies.
Llegó muy tarde a la reunión (He arrived very late to the meeting).
Habla muy despacio para que entendamos (He speaks very slowly so we understand).
Vive muy cerca de aquí (He lives very close to here).
Cocina muy bien (He cooks very well).
Trabaja muy eficientemente (He works very efficiently).
Use with participles: when participles function as adjectives they are intensified with muy.
El documento está muy bien redactado (The document is very well written).
La comida estaba muy sazonada (The food was very seasoned).
Los niños llegaron muy emocionados (The children arrived very excited).
La ventana está muy deteriorada (The window is very deteriorated).
With exceptions, such as that of adjectives or adverbs that have an irregular superlative form or those that end in -mente, this construction is equivalent to adding the suffix -ísimo to the adjective or adverb.
María está muy cansada = María está cansadísima (María is very tired).
Llegó muy tarde a la reunión = Llegó tardísimo a la reunión (He arrived very late to the meeting).
La comida está muy sazonada = La comida está sazonadísima (The food is very seasoned).
Uses of mucho.
Mucho is used as an adverb, as an adjective and as a pronoun. When used as an adverb it intensifies the verb and is invariable.
Me gusta mucho el chocolate (I like chocolate a lot).
Estudia mucho para el examen (He studies a lot for the exam).
Viaja mucho por trabajo (He travels a lot for work).
Duerme mucho los fines de semana (He sleeps a lot on weekends).
In this function it is normally placed after the verb it intensifies, as seen in the previous examples, although for stylistic reasons it can be placed before, which sounds literary.
Mucho me temo que llegará tarde (I much fear he will arrive late).
Mucho agradezco la ayuda de ustedes (I much appreciate your help).
It is also used as an adverb with other adverbs and with adjectives in comparative degree.
Esta casa es más grande que la otra. Esta casa es mucho más grande que la otra (This house is bigger than the other. This house is much bigger than the other).
Llegó más tarde de lo esperado. Llegó mucho más tarde de lo esperado (He arrived later than expected. He arrived much later than expected).
Es mejor estudiante que su hermano. Es mucho mejor estudiante que su hermano (He is a better student than his brother. He is a much better student than his brother).
Corre más rápido que antes. Corre mucho más rápido que antes (He runs faster than before. He runs much faster than before).
Mucho as an adjective: when mucho accompanies a noun, it functions as an adjective and must agree in gender and number.
Tengo mucho trabajo (I have a lot of work) (masculine singular).
Hay mucha gente en la plaza (There are many people in the square) (feminine singular).
Compré muchos libros (I bought many books) (masculine plural).
Vimos muchas películas (We saw many movies) (feminine plural).
Mucho as a pronoun: when mucho substitutes for the noun, it functions as a pronoun, and agrees in gender and number with the noun it substitutes.
¿Tienes trabajo? Sí, tengo mucho (Do you have work? Yes, I have a lot) (masculine singular).
¿Hay agua? Sí, hay mucha (Is there water? Yes, there is a lot) (feminine singular).
¿Cuántos niños vinieron? Vinieron muchos (How many children came? Many came) (masculine plural).
¿Cuántas almendras quieres? Quiero muchas (How many almonds do you want? I want many) (feminine plural).
Mucho has the absolute superlative muchísimo, which elevates even more the degree of what it modifies. It functions the same as in the examples, that is, when it functions as an adverb it is invariable and when it functions as an adjective or pronoun it agrees in gender and number with the noun.
Me gusta muchísimo el chocolate (I like chocolate very much).
Esta casa es muchísimo más grande que la otra (This house is much much bigger than the other).
Vimos muchísimas películas (We saw very many movies).
With mejor and peor, mayor and menor: when we use mucho together with mejor, peor, mayor or menor, más is not used.
Es mucho mejor estudiante que su hermano (He is a much better student than his brother).
La tormenta de hoy fue mucho peor que la de ayer (Today’s storm was much worse than yesterday’s).
Ella es mucho mayor que tú (She is much older than you).
El problema fue mucho menor de lo que pensamos (The problem was much smaller than we thought).
With feminine nouns that begin with stressed a: when we use, for example, the definite article together with one of these nouns, the masculine form is used: we say el agua, el hambre (the water, the hunger). When we use mucho with these nouns the masculine form is not used: we say mucha agua and mucha hambre (a lot of water and a lot of hunger), not mucho agua or mucho hambre. I make this clarification because it is relatively common to hear even native Spanish speakers using the masculine form in these cases.
A bit of colloquial language.
I am Uruguayan, so I speak the River Plate variety of the Spanish language. Around here, although this is an idiom I have seen in native speakers of other countries too, it is very common to substitute muy and, in some cases mucho with the particle re. This is strictly colloquial language but I decided to include it in this article because it is something extremely frequent in my variety of the language and also, as I said before, can be seen in others too. Let’s see examples.
La casa es muy grande = La casa es re grande (The house is very big).
Llegó muy tarde a la reunión = Llegó re tarde a la reunión (He arrived very late to the meeting).
El documento está muy bien redactado = El documento está re bien redactado (The document is very well written).
In the case of mucho sometimes it is substituted by re in its adverbial function, when it intensifies verbs, and more commonly when it involves affective verbs, and in this case the particle re changes position to go before the verb.
Me gusta mucho el chocolate = Me re gusta el chocolate (I like chocolate a lot).
Me duele mucho la espalda = Me re duele la espalda (My back hurts a lot).
I wanted to document this use of the particle re because, although it is strictly colloquial language and my advice is that, as a Spanish learner, you consider it as such, in my variety of the language it is extremely frequent, to the point that beyond being informal language in our countries it is used even in formal situations such as a job interview. That is, if you visit this part of the world or speak with Uruguayan or Argentinian native speakers you will hear the use of re.
We have reached the end of this article. I only have left to add that, for explanatory purposes, I have treated muy and mucho as two different words in this article, but actually they are the same word: muy is the apocopated form of mucho in certain positions. I hope these lines have been useful to you, here I leave you exercises to practice this topic and, as always, thanks for reading!
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