How to properly use "mucho"? (Placement in sentence)

Question

I was wondering how to correctly incorporate "mucho" in a sentence. I know that the placement of "mucho" can change the meaning, but I don't understand how it works. For example, if I were to say "I like dogs a lot," (as in, "To a great degree, I like dogs," or "Dogs are very pleasing to me,") would I say, "Me gustan los perros mucho," "Me gustan mucho los perros," or something else? Also please briefly explain why. Muchas gracias

Answer 1

Unlike in English, Spanish is very flexible with sentence structure, so both of your elections are correct.

"Me gustan los perros mucho,"

This variant emphasises mucho, although at the same time it could be interpreted as an anglosized sentence (not as natural as the other variant, but perfectly acceptable).

"Me gustan mucho los perros"

This is the most natural way between the two variants to say this, although it does emphasize perros.

Your question is well constructed and thought out..

Thank you very much! I This is very helpful. Igualmente, your answer is well constructed. - Alana Nancy4670, Oct 12, 2017

Answer 2

Julian gave you a very good answer regarding the flexibility of mucho as an adverb in Spanish, which is what I think you are primarily interest in.

In case you, or someone else, wants to know about placement of mucho / mucha / muchos / muchas as adjectives I would say they are usually placed BEFORE the nouns they modify. This is normally with case with adjectives which quantify the amount of a noun, unlike many other types of adjectives which describe a noun and usually follow the noun.