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Dói-me o pescoço quando trabalho muito.

Dói-me o pescoço quando trabalho muito.
My neck hurts when I work a lot.
From Lesson 112:O corpo (dói-me a garganta)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Breakdown of Dói-me o pescoço quando trabalho muito.

muito
much / very
trabalhar
to work
quando
when
doer
to hurt
o pescoço
the neck

Questions & Answers about Dói-me o pescoço quando trabalho muito.

Why does the sentence use Dói-me instead of translating "my neck hurts" directly?
In Portuguese, expressing pain works a bit differently than in English. Instead of saying "my neck hurts," you use the verb doer (to hurt) combined with an object pronoun, which is me (to me) in this case. You are literally saying "The neck hurts to me."
Why is it o pescoço (the neck) instead of o meu pescoço (my neck)?
In Portuguese, you generally use definite articles like o or a (the) for body parts instead of possessive words like meu (my). Since you already said me (to me) earlier in the sentence, it is already perfectly clear whose neck is hurting!
Why is the pronoun attached with a hyphen in Dói-me?
In European Portuguese, sentences cannot start with an object pronoun like me. Because the verb is the very first word in the sentence, the pronoun must attach to the end of it using a hyphen.
I know muito can sometimes change to muita or muitos. Why does it stay as muito here?
In this sentence, muito means "a lot" and it describes the verb trabalho (I work). When muito acts as an adverb describing an action, it never changes its ending. It only changes gender or number when it describes a noun, like saying muitas pessoas (many people).

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