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Have you stumbled upon the verb gustar <\/em>in Spanish and felt completely and utterly baffled? We get you! Liking things in Spanish is more complicated than it looks.<\/p>\n Although the gustar <\/em>conjugation is quite different from other verbs in Spanish, there is a logic to it. In this article, we\u2019ll explain how to use gustar <\/em>and cover its conjugation. We\u2019ll also cover other common verbs that behave this way so you are well-prepared to use them.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s dig in!<\/p>\n Gustar <\/em>is quite a particular type of verb in Spanish. Why do you ask? Well, it just doesn\u2019t behave like most other verbs.<\/p>\n Liking in English is pretty straightforward: someone likes something. Meanwhile, in Spanish, something is liked by someone. Trippy, right?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a closer look.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at an example of a sentence with gustar <\/em>in Spanish:<\/p>\n Here, the subject of the sentence is rugby<\/em>. This is the thing being liked and not, as you might have thought, the person doing the liking.<\/p>\n As you probably know, verbs in Spanish are conjugated according to the subject. Therefore, as the subject is rugby<\/em> (third-person singular), the verb gustar <\/em>is conjugated as gusta<\/em>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, me<\/em> represents the person doing the liking, which is the first person singular. This is the indirect object of the sentence. What is an indirect object? This is the person or thing affected by the verb. In this case, the person affected by (or doing) the liking.<\/p>\n Are you still confused? It might be helpful to translate this sentence as \u201cRugby is appealing to me\u201d instead of \u201cI like rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019ve established that the thing or person you like is the subject of the sentence. This means gustar <\/em>will mostly be conjugated only for the third person singular and plural. So gusta<\/em> for singular and gustan <\/em>for plural in the present tense. Technically, the gustar<\/em> conjugation can be used for all persons. However, in this article, we will cover only the ones you will use: the singular and plural forms of the third person.<\/p>\n In addition to our general likes and dislikes, we can also use gustar<\/em> when we fancy someone.<\/p>\n In addition to having a strange subject, the verb gustar<\/em> also requires the presence of an indirect object pronoun in the sentence. A pronoun is a word that replaces the indirect object. In this case, this is the person doing the liking.<\/p>\n Moreover, you can also explicitly mention the person doing the liking in addition to using the indirect object (IO) pronoun. This may sound repetitive, but it can be helpful if you want to clarify who you are talking about. You can do this by using a prepositional phrase. This comprises the preposition a<\/em> and the personal pronoun or name of the person\/s.<\/p>\n In the table below, we\u2019ll look at those pronouns and gustar <\/em>in the present tense to give you an idea of how to form sentences with gustar.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/a>What kind of verb is gustar<\/em>?<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Algo me gusta<\/em> (Something is liked by me)<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/a>Alguien me gusta<\/em> (I fancy someone<\/em>)<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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<\/a>The indirect object pronoun<\/strong><\/h3>\n