2.13: Gramática- El verbo gustar + sustantivos

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:

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.