English question

1.
... but I'm Australian. I might say, "That prick John had better not be late!"...

I don't think any of the British English speakers known to me (including myself) would say either one.

If I really wanted those words i would say:

But I think the idiomatic informal southern British English would be:

really the best way to say it in my opinion would be "I really want John to be on time." That would be the simplest I think also stressing how much you want him to be on time lol. Or just "I want John to be on time." Now, if you said, I very much want John to be on time there would be no "for". English grammar can be complicated.

Although not strictly speaking grammatically correct the more common usage would be "I very much hope (that) John is on time.

The way I see it is this…. Maybe I’m wrong idk.
I want John to be on time. That’s the standard phrase. To put a qualifier in it you could say: I really want John to be on time. The adverb really comes before the verb and so “very much” should also precede the verb. It wouldn’t make sense if you said I want really John to be on time. So very much should not go after the verb either .

In spoken English we screw up the language all the time so if I HAD to pick between the 2 Im more likely to say the first one.

First. John is put in a weird spot in the second and without the for we don’t know what part refers to John.

I'd say: I want John to be on time very much

(English is my 2nd language too)

Personally, I'd say 'I very much want...'

Most USA people would say 1.

Please note there are Idiosyncrasies in every country. Often even within the same country. This actually applies to most languages. Not just English speaking countries.

High German is definitely not low German.

The second one is correct.

If you are studying English, there is an app called Hellotalk where people can practice and help others.

Yeah there are sometimes the romance scammers but mostly it is a good site.

I would really appreciate it if John was punctual and always on time.

Both sound a little awkward, though 1 is less ambiguous than 2

Number 1 is correct.