Remember: Translate the idea, not literal expressions.

Didn't someone just quoted Goethe? What does "very much" mean in "I like to exercise very much"? Does it describe the liking or the amount of exercising?

As a side note the verb ekzerci is transitive in Esperanto, you exercise someone or something. Esperanto pretty much requires the object be explicitly visible in such cases. If you exercise yourself, then you use the verb in a reflexive way, meaning that the action is directed towards the subject. For the first person in singular this reflexive pronoun is min, so mi ekzercas min.

Sergejm is sort of right about ŝati. It did originally mean to appreciate, to esteem, but the actual meaning has long since glid to mean to like as in contemporary English. Therefore one has introduced a new verb aprezi (IIUC borrowed from Ido) to express the original meaning.

Back to the "very much". If it describes the liking, yes, tre is a good choice. If the amount, then it must be something that describes the quantity, multe perhaps. In Esperanto you put the describing word usually in front of the word it describes or in some cases after it, but not far away.
 

• Mi tre ŝatas ekzerci min.
  
• Mi ŝatas multe ekzerci/Mi ŝatas ekzerci multe.

Of course you can use tre multe, and many speak in such exaggerating way, but I personally ,eh, don't like it very much (pun intended), it feels hollow, suspicious.

PrimeMinisterK:
I'm trying to think of a situation in which "we" might be used in a general sense but nothing is coming to mind.

Found by googling

        "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
        – Joan Didion, an US writer

But please, let us not hang ourselves on this. The original expression was oni and that covers anybody (yes, you can theorise whether it covers just humans and no Martians). La subpropozicio was (and it's not mine)
 
        …ke post monato oni povas sciiĝi ankoraŭ pli bone.

At least to me it's obvious that while oni denotes an unspecific group of people (see pronomoj en la gramatika sekcio de Lernu), it must be limited to those, who even possibly can be informed, i.e. it does not include the ordinary man say in Kuala Lumpur (not counting the case when the sentence is said in that city).

Metsis:Remember: Translate the idea, not literal expressions.

Didn't someone just quoted Goethe? What does "very much" mean in "I like to exercise very much"? Does it describe the liking or the amount of exercising?

As a side note the verb ekzerci is transitive in Esperanto, you exercise someone or something. Esperanto pretty much requires the object be explicitly visible in such cases. If you exercise yourself, then you use the verb in a reflexive way, meaning that the action is directed towards the subject. For the first person in singular this reflexive pronoun is min, so mi ekzercas min.

Sergejm is sort of right about ŝati. It did originally mean to appreciate, to esteem, but the actual meaning has long since glid to mean to like as in contemporary English. Therefore one has introduced a new verb aprezi (IIUC borrowed from Ido) to express the original meaning.

Back to the "very much". If it describes the liking, yes, tre is a good choice. If the amount, then it must be something that describes the quantity, multe perhaps. In Esperanto you put the describing word usually in front of the word it describes or in some cases after it, but not far away.
 

• Mi tre ŝatas ekzerci min.
  
• Mi ŝatas multe ekzerci/Mi ŝatas ekzerci multe.

Of course you can use tre multe, and many speak in such exaggerating way, but I personally ,eh, don't like it very much (pun intended), it feels hollow, suspicious.

So how do you know when a verb is transitive or intransitive? And is ekzerci the best work to mean "to work out"? What about "fitness"? Would that be ekzerco, or is there a more specialized term?

For instance, in English the gym rat would say, "I am really into working out." What do you think is the best translation here?

On a related note, is there an Esperanto word for "bodybuilding?" The only place I've found anything is Google Translate, which gives me "korpokulturo." That strikes me, at best, as being a word for the more general "fitness," and not a word to specifically mean bodybuilding.

Metsis:
Found by googling

        "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."
        – Joan Didion, an US writer.

Okay, I guess that would be a use of the general "we." I concur on that example.

Metsis:But please, let us not hang ourselves on this. The original expression was oni and that covers anybody (yes, you can theorise whether it covers just humans and no Martians). La subpropozicio was (and it's not mine)
 
        …ke post monato oni povas sciiĝi ankoraŭ pli bone.

At least to me it's obvious that while oni denotes an unspecific group of people (see pronomoj en la gramatika sekcio de Lernu), it must be limited to those, who even possibly can be informed, i.e. it does not include the ordinary man say in Kuala Lumpur (not counting the case when the sentence is said in that city).

Indeed. I see where you're going here.

I guess if I see "oni" here then I will know, because it says oni, that we are talking generally. If I saw the same sentence in English, and oni was translated as we, then it would require context to know exactly how to understand it, context that is not available only by that snippet.

Just translate "oni" into English as either "you" or "we" and then slam a "generally speaking" at the end of the sentence.

nornen:Just translate "oni" into English as either "you" or "we" and then slam a "generally speaking" at the end of the sentence.

I actually have tended to translate it automatically as "one" whenever I run across it.

PrimeMinisterK:
So how do you know when a verb is transitive or intransitive? And is ekzerci the best work to mean "to work out"? What about "fitness"? Would that be ekzerco, or is there a more specialized term?

For instance, in English the gym rat would say, "I am really into working out." What do you think is the best translation here?

On a related note, is there an Esperanto word for "bodybuilding?" The only place I've found anything is Google Translate, which gives me "korpokulturo." That strikes me, at best, as being a word for the more general "fitness," and not a word to specifically mean bodybuilding.

In most cases you just simply know without any effort, whether a verb is transitive or not. What do you read? What do you see? On the other hand What is that? What kind does it appears to be? And so on. Of course there are border cases, that you have to check in a dictionary. For English speakers ekzerci should be easy: you exercise troops → you exercise your muscles. For me ekzerci requires memorising because in my native language you usually use two different verbs for exercising troops and muscles.

I would say ekzercado is fitness and korpokulturo is bodybuilding (and neither couldn't interest me less), but I suspect that the difference is not known everywhere, so in any case you have to stipulate or explain the terms first in your text/speech.

Metsis:For English speakers ekzerci should be easy: you exercise troops → you exercise your muscles. For me ekzerci requires memorising because in my native language you usually use two different verbs for exercising troops and muscles.

Mmm, well imagine this dialogue:

Person A: So what do you like to do? What are some of your hobbies?

Person B: Well, I like to watch movies, I like to hang out with friends, and I like to work out (or to exercise).

You wouldn't say, "I have to exercise myself later today"--like you literally would never say that--you would just say, "I have to exercise today."

No, but you should easily be able to see a resemblance between exercise and ekzerci. Make a mental note for yourself that you in English you can say "to exercise troops" therefore you must say in Esperanto mi ekzercas min.

Trejni comes to mind.