darle ganas de
Can someone help me with the expression "darle ganas de" ? Im confused because my book says dar is conjugated to dieron but why not the yo form of di, if you are talking in 1st person? Or is dar put on something else? Thanks a lot
2 Answers
Welcome to the forum good question,
You would conjugate dar to whatever it is that is giving you the desire to do something, not to yourself, so di wouldn't work.
I found this interesting insight online:
You can use gana and ganas with the same meaning, but ganas (is) use(d) to imply desires with an external source while gana depicts the person's will. So you will find many coordinations:
Me dieron ganas de comprarlo. (I had such impulse driven by desire)
Me dio ganas de saltar y gritar. (I had such impulse driven by emotion)
No se me dio la gana de llamarlo. (I wasn't in the mood and willing to do so -a pretty blunt way to say it-)
Los regalé porque se me dio la gana. (it was a whim, besides I don't think I should explain my motives -a harsh way to say it-)
And as Gekko says if you do a search you'll find lots of previous posts on this subject, here's one to get you started What's the dealio with dar ganas de? 
