Gustar and Similar Verbs

1. Gustar and Similar Verbs (Gustar y verbos parecidos) ¿Te gusta mi coche? Sí, me gusta mucho.

2. Gustar is used to express preferences, likes, and dislikes; however, gustar means “to be pleasing,” and is constructed very differently from the English “to like.” Gustar is a completely regular -ar verb in its conjugation. gusto gustas gusta gustamos gustáis gustan Gustar = to be pleasing

3. Gustar = to be pleasing In Spanish, the thing or things that we like are expressed as being “pleasing to us.” . . . where “it” is the direct object. In English, we say . . . In Spanish, “it” becomes the subject of the sentence and we say instead . . . I like it. It’s pleasing to me. “I” is then expressed as the indirect object phrase “to me.”

4. Let’s start by talking about something we all like. Following the format on the previous slide, we would say . . . Spanish is pleasing to me. In Spanish, this would literally be . . . me gusta. El español gusta me. I like Spanish. But, of course, in Spanish, pronouns must be placed before conjugated verbs. Now, it so happens that, by convention, the subject (in this case El español) is generally placed at the end of the sentence with this type of construction.

5. Spanish is pleasing to me. me gusta. Me gusta el español. El español I like Spanish. It turns out, then, that the sentence in Spanish is exactly the reverse of that in English, in its sense, and also in its word order.

6. To express that others like Spanish, only the object pronoun needs to change, since Spanish remains the subject in all the sentences. Nos Les Me Os Te Le gusta el español. You all They You We He I like Spanish. likes Spanish.

7. Since most of the things or people that please us are expressed in third person, the two forms of gustar that are used most commonly are gusta and gustan gusto gustas gusta gustamos gustáis gustan Nos gustael flan que hace la abuela. We like the flan that grandma makes. No le gustanlos huevos. She doesn’t like eggs.

8. Of course, it is possible to use other forms. Gustas, for example is used frequently. Me gustas (tú). You please me. (I like you.) When gustar is used with one or more infinitives, only the third person singular is used. Me gusta leer. Me gusta leer, jugar fútbol y viajar.

9. me nos te os The verb gustar is used exclusively with indirect object pronouns le les

10. Gustar is used with indirect object pronouns Megusta ese restaurante. I like that restaurant. ¿Tegusta el té helado? Do you like iced tea? Legustan mucho las zanahorias. He likes carrots a lot. No nosgusta el yogur. We don’t like yogurt. Lesgusta cenar en casa. They like to eat dinner at home.

11. Many other verbs function like gustar These, too, are used with indirect object pronouns. aburrir to bore; to tire encantar to delight; to be extremely pleasing faltar to be lacking or needed fascinar to be fascinating interesar to be interesting molestar to be a bother or to annoy parecer to seem quedar to be left; to remain

12. Many other verbs function like gustar Me aburre comer solo. Eating alone bores me. Les encanta comer fuera. They love to eat out. ¿Les faltan servilletas? Do you all need some napkins? Nos fascina la cocina francesa. French cuisine fascinates us.

13. Many other verbs function like gustar Nos interesan los pingüinos. We’re interested in penguins. Me molestan algunos clientes. Some customers annoy me. Nos parece caro este vino. This wine seems expensive to us. ¿Te queda suficiente dinero para pagar la cuenta? Do you have enough money left to pay the bill?

14. When we like something a lot (mucho) or more (más) than something else, mucho and más immediately follow the verb gustar: Me gusta mucho comer. I really like to eat. A different word order would convey a different meaning: Me gusta comer mucho. I like to eat a lot of food.

15. When we like something a lot (mucho) or more (más) than something else, mucho and más immediately follow the verb gustar: ¿Te gustan más las naranjas o las toronjas? Do you like oranges or grapefruit best? Me gustan más las naranjas. I like oranges best.

16. These are mandatory (a nosotros) (a mí) me nos (a vosotros) (a ti) te os (a ustedes) le les (a usted) (a ellos) (a él) (a ellas) (a ella) The prepositional forms are optional Again, the verbs gustar, encantar, etc. are used exclusively with indirect object pronouns (for clarification or emphasis)

17. All the prepositional forms can be used to emphasize the object pronoun form. doesn’t like beans but I do. Juan no le gustan los frijoles, pero sí me gustan. A Juan a mí Notice that because Juan and I were stressed in the above sentence in English, we added the prepositional forms a Juan and a mí in Spanish to reflect that stress.

18. Since the third-person pronouns le and les can be ambiguous, they sometimes require prepositional forms for clarification. Les encantan las bananas. Since les can represent a number of different people, we may need to add a prepositional form to avoid confusion. A ellos les encantan las bananas. A ellas les encantan las bananas. A Luis y a Marta les encantan las bananas. A Uds. les encantan las bananas.

19. FIN