Mamá y papá trabajan mucho.

Breakdown of Mamá y papá trabajan mucho.

y
and
trabajar
to work
mucho
a lot
la mamá
the mom
el papá
the dad

Questions & Answers about Mamá y papá trabajan mucho.

Why are there accent marks on Mamá and papá?
The accent marks show where the spoken stress falls, which is on the last syllable. Without them, the words mean entirely different things: mama means breast and papa means potato or Pope!
Why isn't there an article here, like La mamá y el papá?
When you are talking about your own parents and using their titles as names, you can drop the articles el and la. This works exactly like it does in English when we say Mom and Dad instead of The mom and the dad.
Why is the verb trabajan used here?
The subject is Mamá y papá, which means Mom and Dad. Because there are two people, they form a they (ellos). Therefore, you must use the they form of the verb trabajar, which is trabajan.
Since the sentence is about two people, why doesn't mucho become plural (muchos)?
In this sentence, mucho is describing how much they work, meaning it provides information about the action word trabajan. When mucho is used to describe an action like this (acting as an adverb), it is fixed and never changes to match gender or number.

Learn Mamá y papá trabajan mucho and more in Spanish

All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.

  • ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
  • ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
  • ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free