The Spanish Verb Gustar in the Conditional Tense – Me gustaría – I would like

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Me gustaría hablar español

The Spanish Verb Gustar is used a lot in Spanish and the conditional tense is especially useful as it is often preferred to querer, which means ‘to want‘ when requesting something or expressing a wish.

However, before venturing further into an explanation, it is worth explaining that me gustaría means it would please me. Do not forget that gustar although used as the direct equivalent of ‘to like‘, in fact means ‘to please‘ or ‘to be pleasing‘.

The difficulty of this expression is that with it you have to get used to a different order of words from the English. Spanish, as is so often the case, is often subject to this varied word order, depending greatly on the importance of what is referred to.

So, as me is important, it is placed at the beginning of the sentence regardless of the fact it is the indirect object (i.e. it means to me) rather than the subject = I…

The problem of course is that you have to change the indirect object pronouns to suit who is being referred to; here are the indirect object pronouns.

• me - to me
• te - to you
• le - to him, her
• le -  to you (polite)
• nos - to us
• os - to you
• les - to them
• les – to you (polite plural)

The conditional form of gustar, which is gustaría, is the same whether it is used in the singular or in the plural and here is how it is formed.

• me gustaría – I would like
• te gustaría – you would like
• le gustaría – he, she would like
• le gustaría – you would like (polite)
• nos gustaría – we would like
• os gustaría – you would like
• les gustaría – they would like
• les gustaría – you would like (polite plural)

When to Use The Prepositional ‘a‘

When the pronoun le or les is used, it isn’t always clear who is the person that is doing the ‘liking‘. When this is the case, you should add the prepositional phrase a plus the person/s who is ‘liking‘. This is shown in the examples below. It should also be noted that even though the person is mentioned in the sentence the indirect-object pronoun should not be left out. The purpose of using the prepositional phrase is to make clear who the person is that is being referred to and not as a replacement for the indirect object pronoun.

• A Juan le gustaría el coche. – Juan would like the car.
• A Carlos le gustaría los zapatos. – Carlos would like the shoes.
• ¿A ustedes les gustaría el coche? – Would you (plural) like the car?

The use of the prepositional ‘a‘ is not just for use when using gustar in the conditional tense but for whenever there is a need to clarify the person who persons who is ‘liking‘.

For example:

• A Carlos le gusta el café – Carlos likes the coffee (The coffee pleases Carlos)
• A Carlos le gustan los zapatos – Carlos likes the shoes (The shoes please Carlos)

Follow the link for more information about the uses and the conjugation of  ‘verbo gustar‘ in the present tense.
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El Verbo Gustar – Gustar Conjugation

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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:

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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.

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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!

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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.