Today’s Spanish word of the day is “gustar”.
It’s a verb that literally means “to please”, but is used in a lot of situations where we would use the verb “to like” in English. It can also mean “to taste” in the context of trying food.
Using the verb “gustar” can be tricky for English speakers starting in Spanish, since in terms of grammar, it’s used with the subject and the object the other way around compared to the English verb “like”. Whereas in English you would say “I like pizza”, in Spanish you would say “me gusta la pizza”, which literally means “pizza pleases me”. Therefore, in this example “la pizza” is the subject of the verb (the one doing the pleasing), while in the English translation, “I” is the subject (the one doing the liking).
The verb “gustar” needs to be conjugated according to the thing which is doing the pleasing, so if you want to say you like dogs, “gustar” would need to be in the third-person plural, since the subject of the verb is dogs (plural, third person):
- Me gustan los perros. – I like dogs. (A more literal translation would be “Dogs please me”)
The word “gustar” comes from Latin gustare, meaning “to taste” or “to enjoy”. This is also the root of the scientific English word “gustation”, meaning “the sense of taste”.
Example sentences
Nos gusta ir al cine los fines de semana.
We like going to the movies on weekends.
A Juan no le gusta el café sin azúcar.
Juan doesn’t like coffee without sugar.
Espero que te guste el regalo que te compré.
I hope you like the gift I bought you.
Me gustaría viajar a Japón si tuviera el dinero.
I would like to travel to Japan if I had the money.
Cuando era niño, me gustaba jugar en el parque.
When I was a child, I liked playing in the park.
