When they talk about things that they like, native Spanish speakers will normally use the verb ‘gustar‘. And if they really like something, they’ll use ‘encantar‘.
As we’ll explain below, the sentence structure and the way of conjugating verbs is quite different in Spanish to what we’re used to in English. So you’ll need to pay attention!
We recommend viewing this 5 minute video, which we’ve made to accompany the class. If you can’t get the video to work or don’t want to watch it, we’ll explain everything below in plain old text and with audio files for you to listen to.
It’s all the wrong way round, at least compared with English. In Spanish, with both ‘gustar’ and ‘encantar’ we are literally saying:
“this thing please me/us/you..” or “these things please me/us/you…”
This is important, as we conjugate the verbs ‘gustar’ and ‘encantar’ based on the thing or things which we like:
Look at these sentences:
Notice how we use ‘gusta’ in the first sentence, but ‘gustan’ in the second? This is because ‘la comida mexicana’ is SINGULAR, whereas ‘manazas’ is PLURAL. The structure of the sentence is the same with the verb ‘encantar’:
Here are more examples:
Don’t attempt to conjugate the verbs based on WHO likes something:
When we talk about activities that we like doing, the verb for the activity must go in the infinitive form:
Now, notice how we say that different people like doing something:
So, how do we use ‘gustar’ with ‘vosotros’, ‘usted’, etc?
We’ve already seen a couple of phrases with ‘tu’, but we’re feeling pretty generous today, so here are a few more.
Remember that forming questions in Spanish is really easy. For more examples check out our lesson on Basic Spanish Questions.
If you can’t remember how/when we use ‘usted’, check out our class on the differences between tu & usted.
The plural form of ‘tu’:
The plural form of ‘usted’ (You knew that already, right?)
To say that you don’t like something, you just need to add ‘no’:
We need to be a little bit careful in how we use ‘gusta’ when we refer to people, because:
That’s right. When you say ‘me gustas’ to someone you’re really saying that you find them attractive. If that isn’t the case, but you just want to tell them what a great chap / chapess they are, you’ll need the verb ‘caer’:
Although we don’t share his political views, this video from the Barcelona-based singer Manuchau is great for practising ‘me gusta’:
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Spanish 1.2 : Basic Spanish questions 
