Gustar Help
Can someone tell me why when you say "I like" you say "Me gusta" instead of "Me gusto" (Because it's an -ar verb, correct?) and "Yo gusto"? The whole gustar verb confuses me because I'm also seeing phrases like "a ti te gusta" and "a mi me gusta" which really confuses me. How do you properly conjugate this verb and use it? And what is the difference between "Te gusta", "a ti te gusta" and "me gusta", "a mi me gusta"?
2 Answers
In Spanish we sometimes put the pronouns me, te, nos, le, etc. before the verb, but in English we don't. For example:
Spanish: Me encontra.
English: He finds me.
As you can see, the pronoun was switched around the verb. This is the same with gustar;
Gustar means to please, so "Me gusta bailar" means "Danicing is pleasing to me". It's "gusta" and not "gusto" because dancing is doing the pleasing, not "yo".
As for "A mí me gusta", "A ti te gusta", ect., the first part just adds emphasis and it means pretty much the same thing.
One pitfall that should be avoided when learning another language involves the habit of expecting literal, word-for-word translations in all situations. The fact is that syntactic structures (i.e. the way that words fit together to form a meaningful whole) do not always overlap from one language to another. A case in point involves the oft-called "gustar-like verbs."
A key syntactic feature of these verbs is that they are used in a way that is not replicable in English. In Spanish, these verbs are used intransitively and make use of an indirect object pronoun to describe who feels the sensation described by the verb. While this exact configuration is not available in English grammar, there do exist some particular semantic similarities with certain verbs in English. Have a look at the following sentences:
- The food disgusts him.
- Your erratic behavior concerns me.
- That ticking sound worries me.
- Your naivete astounds me.
- His talent amazed her.
- The mountains inspired her.
In each of these examples, the subject of the sentence (the food, the behavior, the ticking sound, etc) is the inspiration or cause of the particular feeling expressed by the verb. Meanwhile, the direct object pronoun (her, him, me) describes the person who experiences the given sensation. The difference between Spanish and English, here, is that Spanish makes use of an indirect object pronoun rather than a direct object pronoun, but the concept is still the same. Namely, the verb's subject is the cause of the sensation that is experienced by the person named by the object pronoun. Additionally, in Spanish grammar we find that the object pronoun comes before the conjugated verb rather than after it (the opposite is true of English). Keeping these facts in mind, we can now apply these to your earlier question:
Can someone tell me why when you say "I like" you say "Me gusta" instead of "Me gusto"
With "Me gusta" we have an indirect object pronoun (me) and a conjugated verb (gusta). The verb supplies the information allowing us understand that there is some thing or entity that "pleases" or "invokes a feeling of pleasure or affection." The person that experiences this sensation is identified by the indirect object, "me." Therefore, we might analyze the expression "me gusta" in any of the following ways:
- It pleases me
- It is pleasing to me.
- I like it.
With the expression "Me gusto," on the other hand, we find that the entity that invokes this feeling of affection is also the person that experiences that feeling. In this way, we can interpret "me gusto" as "I like myself" or "I am pleasing to myself."
Here are a few more examples that you might compare to help you better recognize this pattern:
- Me gustan las manzanas - I like apples/apples are pleasing to me.
- ¿Te gustan las uvas? - Do you like grapes?/Are grapes to your liking?
- Nos gusta jugar al baloncesto - We like playing basketball/Playing basketball is pleasing to us.
- Me gusta esta manzana - I like this apple/This apple is to my liking.
- Me gustas - I like you/You are attractive to me.
- No me gustan los lunes. - I don't like Mondays/Mondays are not pleasing to me.
Now with the phrases "a ti" and "a mi" we find that these just restate the indirect object of our sentences and are often used to add emphasis. For example:
- A mí me gustan las manzanas - I like apples.
On the other hand, when we use the third person singular object pronoun, it is sometimes necessary to restate the indirect object for the sake of clarity. That is, a sentence like "Le gustan las manzanas" might be ambiguous in some contexts as it could be taken to mean either "he likes apples" or "she likes apples," and the only way to avoid such ambiguity is with the addition of an appropriate prepositional indirect object:
- A ella le gustan las manzanas - She likes apples
- A él le gustan las manzanas - He likes apples
- A Susan le gustan las manzanas - Susan likes apples
- A Marcos le gustan las manzanas - Marcos likes apples
