Verbo gustar /Verb gustar
VERBO GUSTAR
The Spanish verb ‘gustar’ is very commonly used to express likes, interests and preferences. However, the construction of sentences expressing likes/dislikes in Spanish is very different from that used in English.
In this lesson you’ll learn to use he verb ‘gustar’, the indirect object pronouns and the use of prepositional phrases to emphasize or clarify the indirect object pronoun.
Me gusta la comida sana I like healthy food.
To construct this type of sentence, you will use the indirect object pronouns.
These are the indirect object pronouns in Spanish:
- (Yo) me
- (Tú) te
- (Él, Ella, Usted) le
- (Nosotros) nos
- (Vosotros) os
- (Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes) les
After choosing the right indirect object pronoun (according to the person that likes the thing) it is time to conjugate the verb.
When speaking about things we like, there are only two possibilities: ‘gusta’ or ‘gustan’. This is because the verb is conjugated according to the subject, and the subject in this case is the thing we like, so we’ll use the third person singular or plural depending on whether the thing that “is pleasing to us” is singular or plural.
A ellas les gusta correr
Check these examples:
- Me gusta el fútbol = I like fútbol.
- Nos gustan los helados = We like ice-cream.
- ¿Os gusta el deporte? = Do you like sports?
| Indirect object pronouns | I.Obj. prounouns (Spanish) | gustar ending: 1 thing or verb | gustar ending: two or more things | How it really sounds in English: |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| to me | me | gusta | gustan | I like |
| to you | te | gusta | gustan | you like (tú) |
| to him | le | gusta | gustan | he likes |
| to her | le | gusta | gustan | she likes |
| to you | le | gusta | gustan | you like (Ud.) |
| to us | nos | gusta | gustan | we like |
| to you (fam.pl/Spain) |
os | gusta | gustan | you like (plural-Spain) |
| to them (m) | les | gusta | gustan | they like |
| to them (f) | les | gusta | gustan | they like (f) |
| to you (pl) | les | gusta | gustan | you like (Uds.) |
Also, we sometimes use prepositional phrases in order to clarify who likes the thing (because, for instance ,’le’ could refer to él, ella or usted).
These are the prepositional phrases you’ll find in Spanish:
- A mí
- A tí
- A él / ella / usted
- A nosotros-as
- A vosotros-as
- A ellos/ellas/ustedes
Also, after the ‘A’ you could just mention the name of the person:
- A mi madre
- A Luis
- A los estudiantes
Apart from clarifying the indirect object pronoun, it can also be used to emphasize the person that likes the thing.
PRÁCTICA
Now that we have learned about the verb gustar, let’s do some practice.
Ejercicio 1
Ejercicio 2
Ejercicio 3
Ejercicio 4
Licensing and Attribution:
Gramática content on this page was remixed from Español por el mundo by Gemma Morawski and Ani Alcocer, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Adaptations include voice pronunciations provided by Gemma Morawski and openly-licensed images throughout the H5P flashcards attributed on each card via the H5P editing dashboard and forvo.com . Further adaptations include practice activities created by Gemma Morawski via H5p. Activities were remixed from the following sites;
First year Spanish 1 Activities are copied from: 8.12: Ejercicios- El verbo gustar + sustantivos / Querer y gustar is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Erica Brown, Alejandra Escudero, María Cristina Montoya, & Elizabeth Small (OER SUNY) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.