2.19: Gramática- El verbo gustar + sustantivos
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- Erica Brown, Alejandra Escudero, María Cristina Montoya, & Elizabeth Small
- SUNY Oneonta via OER SUNY
Objetivos
- Recognize the correct pronouns and correct forms of gustar to say what things you and others like and don’t like
In Unit 4 we saw how to say that I or you like to do something, using me/te gusta + infinitive. Of course, it’s possible to say that you like things, too, just a little more complicated.
The Spanish equivalent of “I like” is me gusta , which literally means “it pleases me”. To indicate whether someone else likes something, you change the indirect object pronoun so the thing is pleasing to that person:
| forms for different people liking a singular thing | ||
| persona singular | persona plural | |
| primera (1a) |
me gusta ( I like ) |
nos gusta ( We like ) |
| segunda (2a) | te gusta ( You like ) | os gusta ( You all like ) |
| tercera (3a) | le gusta ( He/She likes ) | les gusta ( They like ) |
When you use the verb gustar, the verb form you choose will depend on whether what you like is a singular noun, a plural noun, or a verb.
The verb form gusta is always in the singular when the noun that is liked or disliked is singular, because *it* is pleasing to the person:
- (A mí) me gusta la casa. ( I like the house. Literally: The house pleases me. )
- (A ti) te gusta la salsa picante. ( You—informal singular—like hot sauce. )
- (A usted) le gusta la comida. ( You—formal singular—like the food. )
- (A él) le gusta el libro. ( He likes the book. )
- (A ellas) les gusta el coche. ( They like the car. )
- (A nosotros) nos gusta el café. ( We like coffee. )
What if plural things are pleasing to you? The verb form gustan is always in the plural when the noun is plural or there are two nouns, because *they* please the person:
- (A mí) me gustan las casas. ( I like the houses. Literally: The houses please me. )
- (A ti) te gustan las manzanas. ( You—informal singular—like the apples. )
- (A usted) le gustan las comidas. ( You—formal singular—like the foods. )
- (A él) le gustan los libros. ( He likes the books. )
- (A ellas) les gustan los coches. ( They like the cars. )
- (A nosotros) nos gustan los animales. ( We like animals. )
As we saw in Unit 4, the verb form gusta is always in the singular when it is followed by a verb, even if there are many verbs listed, because *it* pleases the person *to do* the actions:
- (A mí) me gusta cantar mucho. ( I like to sing a lot. Literally: It pleases me a lot to sing. )
- (A tí) te gusta recibir y escribir cartas. ( You–informal singular– like to receive and write letters. )
- (A usted) le gusta escuchar la música. ( You–formal singular– like to listen to music. )
- (A él) le gusta comer y bailar. ( He likes to eat and dance. )
- (A ellas) les gusta aprender el español. ( They like to learn Spanish. )
- (A nosotros) nos gusta correr. ( We like to run. )
Note: In all of the above examples, the sentences are written with a prepositional phrase ( a mí, a ti, etc.) at the beginning of the sentence. This is optional and most Spanish-speakers will omit this phrase, but they may use it for emphasis in much the way we might emphasize in English by stressing a word or putting it in bold in writing: “ You don’t like beets? Well, I do!” Another use is for clarification in the third person. Since Le gusta comer y bailar could have several translations (“He likes to eat and dance” or “She likes to eat and dance” or “You <formal> like to eat and dance” or “<Any named person> likes to eat and dance”), the clarifying phrase is used more often with le or les .
Some other words that work the same way as gustar:
- Doler ( to hurt; literally: to be painful ) — Me duelen los pies. ( My feet hurt / are hurting me. )
- Encantar ( to love; literally: to be enchanting ) — A los mexicanos les encantan los dramas coreanos. ( Mexicans love Korean dramas. )
- Molestar ( to mind; literally: to be irritating, bothersome ) — ¿Le molesta la música? No, estoy bien. ( Do you mind the music? No, I’m fine. )
Contributors and Attributions
- Gramu00e1tica: El verbo gustar + sustantivos. Authored by : SUNY Oneonta with Lumen Learning. Provided by : SUNY Oneonta. License : CC BY: Attribution