When do you use muy instead of mucho?

Question

When do you se muy instead of mucho?

Answer 1

HI parson, welcome to the forum

Muy is very, mucho : a lot, many...

Soy muy guapa.

Tengo muchos amigos.

We're on the same wavelength. It's 5 in the morning here and I can't sleep. - jeezzle, OCT 18, 2009

Answer 2

I was having trouble with this too..

I found that correcting sentences is really helpful..

Por ejemplo -

When I was a girl my parents were really religious, so, we didn't celebrate Christmas with gifts or Easter with chocolate. (It's complicated...)

'Cuando era una niña mis padres eran muchos religiosos, entonces, no celebrámos la Navidad con regalos o Pascua con chocolate.'

Because religiousness isn't quantifiable (i.e. a lot of religious), instead we're talking about the extent of something (i.e. really/very religious), so we use 'muy'. The sentence should read:

'Cuando era una niña mis padres eran muchos religiosos, entonces, no celebrámos la Navidad con regalos o Pascua con chocolate.'

Every year we would visit my grandma who lived nearby.

'Todos los años nosotros visitábamos a mi abuela quien vivía mucho cerca.'

Like in the other sentence, we're emphasising the extent of something. In english we would use 'very' or 'really', so we use 'muy' and the sentence reads:

'Todos los años nosotros visitábamos a mi abuela quien vivía muy cerca'.

I hope this helps. It's a strategy which can be applied to any type of error that you want to correct. One of the best things you can do is to go back to other things that you've written and look for where you've made the mistake. It's really helpful in proofreading. Eventually, you'll know where you tend to make a mistake before you make it

Rachel

Did you forget to edit your "should read" version of muchos religioso? It appears than no change was made. - 0074b507, OCT 6, 2011

Answer 3

Muy means 'very' and tends to be used in adverbial phrases with 'to be' verbs, mucho means 'much / many / a lot of' (adjective).

Estoy muy bien. but

Tengo mucho calor.

Does that help?

The problem is that mucho can be an adverb as well as an adjective. - 0074b507, OCT 6, 2011

Answer 4

As Jespa pointed out - mucho is also used in tener phrases, like tengo mucho sueño, tengo mucho hambre, tengo mucho calor. Also, me gusta mucho las bicicletas - think I like bikes a lot, not I really like bikes. Phrases like these can be confusing, so you just have to remember it. If you get lost, consult a dictionary or try translating it, the translators usually know the difference

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/mucho

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/mucho

Answer 5

Muy means very and mucho means much/many. You are very pretty. There are many people. Eres muy bonito. Hay mucha gente.