escuchar vs escuchando
If escuchando means 'listening', how come you still have to use escuchar when saying "I like listening to music"="Me gusto escuchar música" instead of "me gusto escuchando música"? Gracias.
10 Answers
"I like listening to music"
Think of it like this:
I like you - I like London. - I like icecream
These 3 use a pronoun or noun for what you like.
A present participle like "listening" in English is in fact a gerund when there is no "to be" verb with it.
A gerund acts like a noun in English so in "I like listening to music" what you like is "listening to music" (a noun phrase) - I am pretty sure the equivalent word in Spanish "escuchando" cannot be used this way - because English gerunds and Spanish gerundios are not the same.
If escuchando means 'listening', how come you still have to use escuchar when saying "I like listening to music"="Me gusto escuchar música" instead of "me gusto escuchando música"? Gracias.
Because "listening" in "I am listening" and in "I love listening" are two completely different types of words that look different in most languages. The latter (a gerund) can be replaced with "I love the listening", but the former (a present participle) can't: "I am the listening" (????) That's because in "I love listening", that "listening" is a noun (a gerund), and in Spanish we use infinitives as nouns, not gerunds.
Besides that, "me gusto" means "I like myself", and "me gusto escuchando música" means "I like myself listening to music".
Don't try to re-invent the Spanish language like most people try to do, using English as a template. Read, read, listen, read, listen, listen and do it a lot more... until you are familiar with our structures. English will not help to learn Spanish.
Here's my guess.
In the sentence "I like listening to music", I understand "listening" to be the subject of the sentence. In English, the gerund of "to listen", or "listening" can be used as a noun.
In Spanish, the infinitive can be used as a noun or an adjective. Please correct me if I am wrong, since I'm probably far beyond my skill level.
Please check the following link that explains this by examples. Gerunds are discussed about mid-way down the page.
Hope that helps! link text
In English, it depends on the verb. These examples are from the book Conversando en Ingles, Prof. Jaime Garza.
Henry enjoys swimming. - Henry disfruta correr.
John considered traveling. - John consideró viajar.
Alice doesn't mind waiting. - A Alice no le importa esperar.
Frank started playing (or to play). - Frank comenzó a jugar.
Frank liked to play (or playing). - A Frank le gustó jugar.
I like listening to music. = I like to listen to music. = Me gusta escuchar música.
You use the gerund to say what you or others are doing at the moment in time like:En este moment estoy escuchando musica y mi esposa esta viendo la tele, los niños estan jugando en el jardín etc. on the other hand to say that you like listening to music you say A mi me gusta escuchar la música y me gustan los canciones de amor, gusta is third congugation of the verb gustar and gustan is plural, gusta is always used to precede an infinative of the verb that pleases you and when you are liking things in plural it is gustan as in my example.
A hammer is a "tool". A screwdriver is also a "tool". If I use a hammer to bash in a person's head or a screwdriver to stab someone then it becomes reasonable to refer to them as "weapons" (for the purposes of that particular discussion). However no sane person (who is a competent speaker of English) would say to a carpenter "Let me borrow the hammer that you have in your "weapon box." or "I need a weapon to pound in this nail."
The definition of a "gerund" (in English) is a verbal form used as a noun. Thus, if it's not used as a noun it's not a gerund. There are two verbal forms in English that can be used as nouns: one is the present participle (derived form ending in "-ing") and the other is the infinitive. For historical reasons (or, perhaps, because they are perverse) grammarians do not normally refer to infinitives used as nouns as "gerunds". In Spanish there is only one verbal form that can be used as a noun, i.e. the infinitive. Thus, One can reasonably say of Spanish that there is no such thing as a "gerund". There is, of course, a present participle (gerundio) and it can serve other functions than constructing present progressive tenses (most notably, serving as an adverb) but it cannot function as a noun (and that is the heart and soul of the definition of a "gerund" in English).
Read up on Gerunds and Present Progressive. Those two will encompass most of what you need to know.
Here are some useful tips: Translating English -ing Words
I'm looking forward to the answer of this because I don't really understand it myself but I know that instead of using the gerund form as we do in English, Spanish uses the infinitive so it would be "I like to listen to music".
Thank you, all the explanations made sense. @stormcrowofr i sure will.
Spanish doesn't use present participles as nouns like English does even in the beginning of sentences, so you're left with using the infintive. By the way you can I like to listen to music, which translates perfectly as me gusta escuchar musica.
