Learn Spanish (Latin America): En el campo, la gente suele madrugar mucho. - In the country, people usually wake up very early.

En el campo, la gente suele madrugar mucho.

In the country, people usually wake up very early.

Breakdown of En el campo, la gente suele madrugar mucho.

the countryside / the field (piece of farmland)

Questions & Answers about En el campo, la gente suele madrugar mucho.

How does suele work in this sentence?

Suele comes from the verb soler, which means 'to usually do' or 'to tend to' do something. It has a stem change from O to UE in the present tense. We always follow it with an infinitive verb (here, madrugar). Together, suele madrugar translates to 'usually wakes up early'.

Why is the verb suele singular when la gente (people) refers to multiple people?

In Spanish, la gente is a grammatically singular noun, much like 'the crowd' or 'the public' in English. Even though it refers to multiple people, it always takes a singular, third-person verb.

Is madrugar just one word for waking up early?

Yes! Madrugar is a single verb that means 'to get up early' or 'to wake up early'. While you could say despertarse temprano, madrugar is very common and sounds natural. It is related to la madrugada, which means the dawn or early hours of the morning.

Why does the sentence use mucho instead of muy for very?

In English the translation says 'very early', but in this Spanish sentence, mucho is acting as an adverb modifying the verb madrugar. Because it describes a verb (how much they do the action of waking up early), we must use mucho. We only use muy before adjectives and other adverbs.