Is the word order important in the phrase "мы тоже ее видим"?

Question

What is the difference between the phrases:

Мы тоже ее видим

and

Мы видим ее тоже

Answer 1

This is a very thinly nuanced distinction.

Without commas or other punctuation, the word closer to the beginning gets greater emphasis. In this case, "Мы тоже ее видим" can be translated as "Just like you, we can see it", while "Мы видим ее тоже" - "We can see it, just like you".

Answer 2

The second variant has an unmarked word order and is thus neutral.

«Тоже» in the first variant, jumps out of the unmarked word order and thus gets emphasis.

Answer 3

• Мы тоже ее видим = вы её видите, и мы тоже её видим, как и вы;

• Мы видим ее тоже = мы видим её среди других; мы видим не одну её, но других тоже видим.

Google translate:

• Мы тоже ее видим = you see it, and we see it too, just like you;

• Мы видим ее тоже = we see her among others; we see not only one of them, but we also see others.

Answer 4

Well... I'm posting this answer because I feel that each of existing answers tells only part of the story.

Technically (with a certain amount of imagination), each of the sentences you're asking about could be interpreted as either of the following:

• "We see her, too", where "too" means "just like you do".
• "We see her too", where "too" means "just like we see someone else".

How does one tell which interpretation is the most plausible?

1. In live speech, intonation stress will emphasize the semantic center of the sentence. "Too" should be linked to that center then. Intonation is a strong indicator; it can override all other criteria.
2. Without intonation (that is, if all we have is a written text), context is the next most important thing to consider.
3. Without context (that is, in a standalone phrase like in your question), word order is all that is left to suggest the right interpretation.

So your question boils down to interpreting the word order...

It is true that word order isn't that important in Russian; inflection may help you glean the meaning even from an extremely scrambled sentence. However, there are limits: certain invariable words can form collocations with almost any other word. So as you drag such a word across the sentence, it will "snap" semantically to the nearest word, potentially creating different meanings. Take, for example, amplifying words like "именно", "точно" ("exactly, precisely"):

• "Именно я видел её." =~ "It was me who saw her."
• "Я именно видел её." =~ "Seeing her was what I did."
• "Я видел именно её." =~ "It was her that I saw."

"Тоже" is one of those words: it can form a semantic bond with many different words. Hence the technical ambiguity of its interpretation. It may be just my personal opinion, but in this particular case it seems natural to me to link "тоже" with the preceding pronoun. So to answer your question:

What is the difference between the phrases

"Мы тоже её видим" becomes "We see her, just like you do".
"Мы видим её тоже" becomes "We see her, along with other people/things".

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Edit:
To my taste, that last sentence sounds a bit broken. It begs for an "и": "Мы видим и её тоже".

If it was me writing those sentences and I wanted to disambiguate the semantic stress even in writing, I would have put unstressed "и" before the emphasized word in all the sentences:
"И мы тоже её видим".
"Мы и видим её тоже".
"Мы видим и её тоже".
That would've eliminated any possible doubts regarding what word "тоже" is linked to.

Answer 5

В такой записи разницы нет никакой, в действительности. В русском языке порядок слов сам по себе не важен, как в языке - флективно-синтетическом.

Любая такая фраза приобретает то или иное смысловое ударение и различия - лишь благодаря фонетической интонации и контексту.

1. Мы тоже её видим = Мы видим её тоже - именно её, а не другой объект.
2. Мы тоже её видим = Мы видим её тоже - именно видим,а не слышим, например...
3. Мы тоже её видим = Мы видим её тоже - именно мы, а не кто-то еще.

Но 1. и 2. и 3. не равны друг другу, не в точности, есть акцентация на выделенном слове. :>