El Verbo Gustar – Gustar Conjugation

Click Here to learn how to conjugate irregular Spanish verbs quickly and with ease

El Verbo Gustar

El verbo gustar (The verb gustar), which literally means ‘to please’ but is translated and used instead as the equivalent to the English ‘to like’, is something of an anomaly to English speakers because it is used totally differently to how we use the English verb it stands for.

I wrote an article some time ago on how to use the verb Gustar and rather than rewite the same information I will post the article here:

—————————————————————–

El Verbo Gustar – Using The Spanish Verb Gustar

In Spanish, there is no exact equivalent to the English verb ‘to like’, actually, the nearest in both meaning and, most importantly, in how it is used, is the verb gustar, ‘el verbo gustar‘, which literally translated into English is ‘to please’.

To emphasize this; if you were to say in English, ‘I like my coffee strong‘, the Spanish equivalent, would translate as ‘Strong coffee pleases me‘.

Using Gustar is quite simple when compared to other verbs in Spanish.

Although, not strictly an irregular Spanish verb, gustar does not follow any of the regularly used Spanish verb patterns, whether they are irregular or regular and it only ever uses the 3rd person forms, irrespective of the tense.

The make-up of a sentence when using the verb gustar is the opposite as it is in English. (To give a grammatical explanation; the English subject becomes the indirect object and the English object becomes the subject.}

Now…to put that explanation into plain English so that everyone can understand!

Consider this phrase: ‘I like my coffee strong‘, in this sentence ‘I‘ is the subject and ‘coffee‘ is the object, Compare that with this sentence, ‘Strong coffee pleases me‘, where ‘coffee‘ is the subject and ‘me‘ is the indirect object.

As I have said, gustar is always used in the third person and this happens because it relates to what is liked, instead of whom or what likes it.

If what is ‘liked‘ is singular or, if it’s an action that is ‘liked‘ gusta is used, if, however, what is ‘liked‘ is plural you would use gustan.

Gustar Conjugation of the present tense in the singular and plural:

• Me gusta/gustan – I like…or, I like it
• Te gusta/gustan – You like…or, you like it
• Le gusta/gustan – He/She/You like…or, he/she/you like it
• Nos gusta/gustan - We like…or, we like it
• Os gusta/gustan – You like…or, you like it
• Les gusta/gustan – They/you like…or, they/you like it.

Here are some examples:

• Me gusta el deporte. – I like sport.
• Nos gusta el colegio. – We like school.
• A Carlos le gusta hablar. – Carlos likes talking

Gustar in the plural:

• Me gustan los coches. – I like cars
• Nos gustan los trenes. – We like trains
• Les gustan los perros – They like the dogs.

Gustar isn’t the only Spanish verb that is formed like this, encantar ‘to enchant/love’, apetecer ‘to fancy/crave for’, quedar ‘to stay/remain’, faltar ‘to be missing’, parecer ‘to seem’, and doler ‘to hurt/ache/mourn’ are a few of the commonly used verbs that are used in this way.

—————————————————————

I hope that this will help you understand the use of the Spanish verb gustar a little better. There is another very common way that gustar is used and that is in the conditional tense and you can read about it on my next post but before that you should check out the video below that looks at how gustar is used…it never fails to put a smile on my face!

————————————————————-

————————————————————-

Fantastic video clip, hey!

If you are struggling with the use of gustar or the conjugation and use of any Spanish verbs and it is holding you back in your studies check out my review of the Verbarrator verb training software. It is the best learning aid I’ve ever used specifically aimed at mastering Spanish verbs and their complex conjugations.

Be Sociable, Share!

•