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No puedo dormir porque hay mucho ruido.

No puedo dormir porque hay mucho ruido.
I cannot sleep because there is a lot of noise.
From Lesson 38:Stem-changing verbs (o to ue)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about No puedo dormir porque hay mucho ruido.

Why does the verb change to puedo instead of just being podo?
Puedo comes from the verb poder (to be able to / can). It is a stem-changing verb. In the present tense, the o in the root of the word changes to ue for most forms, including the yo (I) form.
I learned that dormir is also an o-to-ue stem-changing verb. Why isn't it duermir in this sentence?
Dormir (to sleep) does change its stem to ue when you conjugate it, for example yo duermo (I sleep). However, in this sentence, puedo is already conjugated. When two verbs are used together like this, the second verb stays in its full, unchanged dictionary form (the infinitive).
What is hay and why don't we use es or está for "there is"?
Hay is a special, very common word that means both "there is" and "there are". It comes from the verb haber. In Spanish, you always use hay to state that something exists, rather than using forms of ser or estar.
Why do we use mucho here instead of muy?
Mucho means "much" or "a lot of", and it is used to describe nouns, like ruido (noise). Muy means "very", and it is only used before adjectives and adverbs. Since you are saying "a lot of noise" and not "very noise", you need mucho.

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