It is very common for basic –or even advanced– Spanish students to participate in dialogues such as this one: Show -¡Hola! ¿Cómo estás? -¡Muy bueno! You can see there’s a problem, isn’t that right? Don’t worry: the difference between “bien” and “bueno” is simpler than you think. To begin with, what kind of words are Bien and Bueno? Well, let’s dive into it!
Here “bueno/a/s” is modifying nouns, such as “libro”, “película” and “chicos”, which is why it changes in gender or number if the noun is feminine or plural. For the verb “ser” it is way more common to use “bueno”, instead of “bien”.
Let’s see some examples:
Here we are not modifying Juan, but the verb “read”. So, if we ask the question “¿Cómo lee Juan?” (“How does Juan read?”), the answer is going to be “bien” (“well”). This seems quite simple, right? But… why is it so confusing, then? Now, what usually confuses students about this topic doesn’t have anything to do with the words “bueno” and “bien”. As a matter of fact, it’s usually an issue about the verb “to be” in Spanish! If we ask “How are you?” (as a greeting), the most decent translation won’t be “¿Cómo eres?” (ser), but “¿Cómo estás?” (estar). The answer for “¿Cómo estás?” should be “Bien” instead of “Bueno”, because we’re modifying the verb, not a noun.
We’re modifying the verb.
We’re modifying Gabriel.
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Learn Languages from Content You Love! Sign Up Free How do you respond to muy bien?The standard answer is probably "Bien" ("Fine") or "Muy bien" ("Very good"). Of course, both of those responses are often expanded: "Muy bien, gracias. ¿Y tú?" ("Quite well, thank you. And you?").
What does muy bien stand for?Muy bien meaning “Very well”
Muy means “very” and is often followed by an adverb or an adjective. The word bien is the literal translation of “well”. So muy bien means “very well”, “fine”, or even “OK”, when used to express satisfaction about a situation.
How do you use muy bien in a sentence?– Desde que hago ejercicio estoy muy bien. – Since I do exercise I am very well.
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