Estructuras

 
 
In Spanish 10, you learned how to say things that you like and don’t like. Let’s review:
 
Gustar    
  One thing or verb More than one thing
me/te/le/nos/os/les gusta gustan
 
Miramos un ejemplo:
(A mĂ­) me gusta el chocolate caliente.
 
There are two things to notice. First, we use the following pronouns to indicate who we are talking about. In the example above, “I” like hot chocolate this is shown by “a mí me”.
 
  •  a mĂ­ me;
  
  •  a ti te;
  
  •  a Ă©l/ella/usted le;
  
  •  a nosotros nos;
  
  •  a vosotros os;
  
  •  a ellos/ellas/ustedes les
  
 
Sometimes we add the “a + person” to clarify who it is that we are talking about. This is especially important for the third person “le” and “les”.
 
Then, we have to indicate whether we are talking about one or many things. In the example above, gustar is conjugated to reflect a hot chocolate so it is in the singular gusta. Notice if we wanted to say that we like hot drinks, the sentence would change to (A mĂ­) me gustan las bebidas calientes.
A Juan le gusta el agua. A Teresa le gusta la fruta. ¿A quién le gusta el chocolate?
 
OJO: here, if we didn’t have “A Juan” y “A Teresa”, it wouldn’t be clear who likes what.
 
Another example would be:
Âż(A ti) te gusta cocinar?
 
This example shows how we use two verbs together; the question is asking “Do you like to cook?”
 
OJO: We always use gusta and then follow it with a verb in the infinitive. We do not conjugate (change) both verbs “(A ti) te gusta cocinas?”.
 
When we have multiple (plural) things that we like:
(A nosotros) nos gustan los moles mexicanos.
 
This example reflects that we are talking about “our” preferences (nosotros), and gustan shows that there is more than one thing (los moles mexicanos).
 
There are some verbs that we use just like gustar that will help increase your vocabulary. You probably know some of them already, and some of them are cognates; let’s look at them!
 
 fascinar (to be fascinating to someone): ¡Me fascinan las culturas prehispánicas!  
 importar (to be important to someone): No le importa ganar mucho dinero en su trabajo.  
 caer bien (to get along well with someone): ÂżTe caen bien los otros equipos?
 disgustar (to be repugnant, to hate): ¡Me disgusta comer chapulines!  
 interesar (to be interesting to someone): A ellos les interesan mucho las religiones de la regiĂłn.  
 molestar (to be bothered by: ÂżOs molesta el calor en MĂ©xico?  
 encantar (to be enchanted by, to love): Nos encanta aprender sobre el DĂ­a de Muertos.  
  
Watch the following vidoes that talk about gustar

OJO: “Gustar” has a romantic connotation when we use it to refer to people. If you want to say “I like your friend” (as a person) or “I get along well with your friend", you would use the verb caer: Me cae bien tu amigo. Caer follows a similar structure to “gustar”, you use the same pronouns (me, te, le, nos, os, les) and you can use bien/mal to add detail to your sentence.
 
Some other examples with caer:
Me cae mal tu amigo - I do not like your friend
 
ÂżTe cae bien mi hermano? - Do you like / get along well with my brother?
¿Te cae mal mi hermano? - You don’t like my brother?
 
A ella le cae bien el chico - She likes the boy. (Note : not romantically!).
A ella le cae mal el chico. - She does not like / get along with the boy.
 
OJO: However: we can use gustar to refer to famous people, like politicians, movie stars, singers, artists, etc.
  Me gusta mucho Justin Bieber.