Learn Portuguese (Portugal): A aluna gosta muito de chocolate.

In Portuguese, the verb gostar (to like) must always be followed by the preposition de when you are stating what someone likes. It helps to think of it as saying the student is "fond of" chocolate.

Why is muito placed in the middle of the sentence instead of at the end?

In English, we usually put "a lot" at the end of the sentence. However, in Portuguese, adverbs like muito stay close to the verb they describe. It goes directly after the verb, giving us the order gosta muito de (likes a lot of).

I learned that Portuguese often uses "the" for general things. Why is it just de chocolate and not do chocolate?

While Portuguese does use definite articles for broad categories, uncountable substances like food and drinks often just use the plain preposition de after gostar. If the sentence used do chocolate (which is a mix of de + o), it would mean she likes a specific piece or brand of chocolate, rather than chocolate in general.

How do we know this student is female?

The noun for student is aluno for a male and aluna for a female. The feminine ending -a, along with the feminine word for "the" (A) at the start of the sentence, tells us this student is a girl.